


All You Think Of Lately

by Nacre_Voit



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: A little bit of internalised homophobia, Anal Sex, Angst, But also, Drunk Sex, Gangbang kinda, Held Down, High Sex, Hurt/Comfort, Idiots in Love, Long-suffering Saint Niall, Louis is in denial about the pining, M/M, Masturbation, Moody Harry later, Mutual Pining, Oral Sex, Primary Larry pairing, Secondary Ziam pairing, Suffering, Sweet sweet crack, Sweetheart Harry, Threesome - M/M/M, Town bicycle Harry, Unsafe Sex, Versatile absolutely everyone, hands tied, long fic, safe sex, so much
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-12-16
Updated: 2020-07-19
Packaged: 2021-02-24 15:26:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 48,831
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21820156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Nacre_Voit/pseuds/Nacre_Voit
Summary: He smacked his head trying to discreetly climb into Harry’s bunk in the dark, and okay, a little shaky on the dismount from heterosexuality, Louis, and that had seemed like a pretty good time to wuss out of that plan, but then Harry had stirred and opened his eyes and Louis froze with one hand pressed into his pillow. Harry’s eyelashes fluttered sleepily before his green eyes flew open and went so wide that Louis wanted to hit himself in the face with a hammer.“Oh,” Harry breathed, and Louis tried not to think about why Harry’s fingers shyly touching his neck as his legs opened for him was the best thing he’d ever felt.After that, it might’ve gotten a little out of hand. Louis’s willing to admit that. Harry’s hips are almost permanently adorned with the pink imprints of several sets of fingers.Harry plays around with Louis, Liam and Zayn until it gets awkward. And then a lot more.
Relationships: Cara Delevingne/Harry Styles, Eleanor Calder/Louis Tomlinson, Harry Styles/Louis Tomlinson, Liam Payne/Harry Styles, Nick Grimshaw/Harry Styles, Perrie Edwards/Zayn Malik, Zayn Malik/Harry Styles, Zayn Malik/Liam Payne, Zayn Malik/Liam Payne/Harry Styles
Comments: 50
Kudos: 172





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [LithiumCrystal](https://archiveofourown.org/users/LithiumCrystal/gifts).



> Lovely, polite people for a long time: Please finish your Matty Healy/George Daniel fic
> 
> My brain: Finish that huge Larrie fic you wrote more than five years ago that nobody asked for
> 
> If you're here because of that other fic, I got into The 1975 because my best mate showed me some of their songs while I was already writing this, so I played them as I was writing. So, you're welcome/I'm so sorry. 
> 
> Otherwise, welcome to a novel length Larrie, Ziam, Harry/the Lads, and Niall trying to enjoy his snacks in peace porn and pining fic! I posted two little parts of this as a one-off before but I decided I'm pretty nostalgic at the moment and actually wanna finish it. 
> 
> I wrote the first part of this well over five years ago sometime after Midnight Memories came out so that's the vague era it's in and it doesn't lead up to current real-life-content in anyone's lives in any way. This is pure crack and angsty nostalgia and fiction. I understand that representations of touring, tour buses, hotels, doing press, Paul, and Simon (among many other things) in this fic, are not how any of those things have actually worked, at all, at any time, ever. Trust me, I'm so aware. 
> 
> Given how long ago I wrote much of this, are there things about it that I might approach differently now? Probably. Did I want to go back and change a hair on this fic's head after how much love my fanfic muse and conspirator LithiumCrystal and I clearly poured into this at 1a.m. sessions? Absolutely the fuck not. 
> 
> I'm going to post weekly updates for as long as I can because I've got about 45,000 words and change of this already done including the first new parts, and also because I've always wanted to do that but have never been organised. 
> 
> Title by Tegan and Sara.

It’s not like they don’t all _know_. They don’t exactly talk about it. Except for Niall, who at this stage has just given up on stoically ignoring it and is currently banging on the bathroom door and yelling threats at Liam and Harry because they’ve been in the shower for an hour and a half. But it’s not like Louis and Zayn don’t _know_ that Liam has Harry up against the shower wall, that he has those ridiculously long legs wrapped around his torso so that he can thrust relentlessly while Harry just gasps and takes it. It’s not like they don’t both _know_ what Harry looks like naked and soaking wet. And not just because Harry likes to be casually naked as much as he possibly can.

Louis’s not entirely sure how it started. He first caught Liam and Harry in a storage closet backstage. As he’d walked past the door, Louis had heard something that sounded a lot like “God, Harry, it’s like you were born to ride a cock.” Louis hadn’t _actually_ expected them to be having sex when he burst triumphantly through the door, because _for fuck’s sake_. Louis Tomlinson knew when he was being pranked and no one pranked Louis Tomlinson without him ruining their prank and then out-pranking them to teach them a lesson.

It was hard to work out how Liam casually leaning back on the speaker he was sitting on with sweat starting to glisten on his chest and his cock balls-deep in Harry’s arse was a prank though. Harry was grinding on his lap with his legs folded under him so that they stuck out behind him in such a ridiculous shambles of limbs that Louis would have scoffed, if he’d been able to close his mouth. Louis’s first thought was ‘ _Our pranks have possibly gone too far_ ’, but he’d be lying if he said it wasn’t closely followed by ‘ _Oh’_ and _‘Fuck’._

Harry was so absorbed in what he was he doing that he apparently hadn’t heard Louis come in, and if Liam was embarrassed _at all_ , he didn’t show it, and that’s the beauty of Liam Payne, really. When he saw Louis standing there, Liam had looked him dead in the eyes and smirked before reaching his hand around to _smack_ Harry’s arse, and honestly, Louis had no idea what was wrong with his band but he was having no part of it, thank you very much.

Louis thinks he might have walked in on Zayn and Harry’s first time, but it’s hard to say, because Zayn Malik has made being shy and mysterious into a lifestyle. Louis had walked into the bunks one night and heard Harry’s breathless ‘Is that-’ and Zayn’s throaty “Yeah. _Yeah._ Like that.” The curtain on Zayn’s bunk wasn’t closed all the way, and it wasn’t exactly humanly possible to ignore the wet, arching way that Zayn swallowed as Harry’s head sank back between his thighs. Louis had marched himself right back to the front of the bus to play Jenga with Niall because _someone_ had to take a stand about maintaining normal interactions in this band.

Louis wasn’t going to _say_ anything. He certainly wasn’t going to blurt out “So how’s fucking Payno and Zayn working out for you these days?” to Harry when they were sitting on the sofa eating Pop-Tarts, but then that happened, so.

“You know about that, huh,” Harry had mumbled, and it was probably something about the flush on his face and the heat in his soft, slow voice as he stared down at his strawberry-frosted Pop-Tart that made Louis’s brain abandon him completely, apparently, as it somehow occurred to him to respond with “No offence mate, but it’s pretty pathetic that you’re not even shagging the best-looking bloke in the band.” Because really, impressive work, Tomlinson, that was exactly how _not_ to make that situation less painfully awkward than it already was.

“I would if you wanted to,” Harry had said quietly, and Louis was so shocked that his mouth went into smart-arse mode automatically.

“What was that, Hazza?”

But Harry had looked down at his hands and stubbornly muttered, “I would do it with you if you wanted to.”

And Louis didn’t fuck him into the sofa right then, because Louis was a heterosexual, damnit, and heterosexuals didn’t just fuck their best friend because he told them they were _allowed_.

It took him four nights.

He smacked his head trying to discreetly climb into Harry’s bunk in the dark, and okay, a little shaky on the dismount from heterosexuality, Louis, and that had seemed like a pretty good time to wuss out of that plan, but then Harry had stirred and opened his eyes and Louis froze with one hand pressed into his pillow. Harry’s eyelashes fluttered sleepily before his green eyes flew open and went so wide that Louis wanted to hit himself in the face with a hammer.

“ _Oh_ ,” Harry breathed, and Louis tried not to think about why Harry’s fingers shyly touching his neck as his legs opened for him was the best thing he’d ever felt.

After that, it might’ve gotten a little out of hand. Louis’s willing to admit that. Harry’s hips are almost permanently adorned with the pink imprints of several sets of fingers. Yesterday Louis’s pretty sure he heard one of their techs muttering “I’ve seen them on each other in so many combinations I literally don’t know which one is which anymore,” and fuck him, because Louis Tomlinson is singular.

Louis had to admire the way that Niall had resolutely pretended it wasn’t happening for longer than anyone else. He’d only completely abandoned that course of action when he and Zayn and Louis had arrived back from a Starbucks trip to find Liam eating Harry’s arse on the kitchen bench. Harry was mewling in a way that made Louis wonder if he was actually going to die. His legs were spread at an angle that would best be described as pornographic, and his right ankle was flailing dangerously close to the box of cinnamon doughnuts Niall had left on the edge of the bench.

The image of Niall Horan propelling his small body into the kitchen as he yelled “NOT MY DOUGHNUTS, YOU BITCH!” was one that Louis would recall fondly for a long time.

Louis looks up from his phone as Liam finally emerges from the bathroom with a shit-eating grin on his face. He’s followed by Harry, who’s frowning that way he always does when he’s focused as he works on edging his tight black skinny jeans over his hips. Louis watches as a drop of water slides down over the butterfly on Harry’s stomach, and then accidentally presses a button on his phone and tries to discreetly hide his freak out as it starts phoning someone.

“Your scrambled eggs are cold. I hope you’re both fucking happy,” Niall is saying, and he makes a disgruntled noise as Harry gives him his stupid adorable grin and wraps his arms around him.

“Sorry Niallers.”

“Get off me. You smell like Payne’s lack of self-control.”

Liam nods solemnly.

“My musky aroma is powerful.”

It’s then that Zayn looks up at Harry from the sofa. He arches his eyebrows a little and bites his lower lip just that tiny bit as he smiles, and Harry blushes and self-consciously wipes a wet lock of hair away from his forehead, but he nods.

Niall looks from Zayn to Harry to his lovingly prepared scrambled eggs and back again. His eyes narrow. Liam wolf-whistles as they walk toward the bunks. Niall stares in disbelief.

“Don’t mind me!” He calls after them. “I’ll just set these on fire, yeah? Because all my friends are more interested in bumming each other for seventeen hours a day than they are in eating to stay alive.”

And Louis thinks it’s all a laugh, except for the part when he watches Zayn’s hand rub against Harry’s in that affectionate way that’s so fucking _familiar_ it’s almost accidental, and something inside his chest feels a little too tight.

*

Liam fucking hates doing press. For every nice interviewer who asks them well-intended questions about their inspiration and performing, there’s fucking six of them who ask them about whether they’re dating people they’ve only had time to go on one date with, and the unbelievable awkwardness of that fucking nips that relationship in the bud, doesn’t it? And then there’s the ones who shove photoshopped pictures of Harry and Louis in Harry’s _face_ , and then almost flat out ask if they’re fucking, and that’s just lovely, because it’s not like Harry is allowed to have close personal relationships without being humiliatingly interrogated about them in a public forum, is it?

Liam’s already worried he’ll end up punching an interviewer in the face if he ever has to watch Harry look down at his hands again as he struggles to articulate a response to another question about whether he’s secretly in love with his best friend while six lenses zoom in on his face. And Liam doesn’t even know what’s _actually_ going on with Louis and Harry anymore, but for someone who is literally putting his dick in a bloke’s arse on a frequent basis, Louis has some serious ‘no homo’ problems going on, so Liam wishes him luck with whatever the fuck that is.

“No hard feelings mate, not like that question was fucking personal or anything,” Liam says under his breath when he walks past the interviewer as he heads off set after they’re done. Zayn gives him a warning look and shakes his head slightly, so Liam just swallows his anger and checks if Harry’s feeling alright.

Louis and Niall were scheduled to finish up with their own interview around the same time as them, so they all arrive at the hotel together. Paul assumes his room key distribution position, part of a practice that was instigated by Simon following an incident involving the five of them wrestling on a hotel lobby floor, which was apparently a poor example for young fans.

“Wanna room with me tonight, Hazza?” Liam asks, because he’s learned from bitter experience that you have to act quickly in these situations. He delivers it as less of a question and more of an ‘I’m about to fuck your arse until you can’t walk’ though, and Harry’s eyes widen as he nods. Paul’s eyes flicker watchfully back and forth between the others as he prepares himself for the usual protests, but apparently Liam’s present strop is so patently obvious to everyone around him that no one questions his need for Harry’s willing, writhing limbs to take edge the off.

Zayn shrugs and smiles as he drapes an arm over Niall’s shoulders.

“Looks like you’re all mine tonight, Niall.”

Niall gives Zayn a concerned look over his sausage roll but appears to accept the arm. Louis shoots Liam a look, because deny it as much as he likes, Louis is a massive attention whore who dislikes being put in the single room to the point of having been apprehended walking the hallways and disturbing other guests on numerous occasions. Liam pulls his best innocent face in Louis’s vague direction as he shoves Harry ahead of him into an elevator.

The first thing Harry does when they get into their room is head straight onto the bedroom balcony and lean over it as far as possible, because apparently his internal dangerous-position-finder is particularly on point today.

“The view is fucking fantastic!” he announces happily as Liam hefts all of their luggage through the bedroom door, and Liam drops it and stares in horror at what’s about to happen. Harry’s feet come off the balcony as he leans over the railing, and Liam has to propel himself across the room at full force to grab him as he starts to tip forward, because Harry apparently has no awareness of his own limbs.

Harry lets out a surprised ‘Oofff’ as he falls back against Liam’s chest, and Liam staggers backwards through the balcony door until their legs hit the side of the bed. He wraps his arm tighter around Harry’s chest and just buries his entire face in those curls, closes his eyes and inhales, because _God_ , he couldn’t live with himself if Harry ever wasn’t okay.

Harry settles back against Liam and murmurs, “Hey. Hey, I’m alright.”

Liam snorts into his hair.

“Yeah, _you’re_ alright. I’m just about having a heart attack here. You need a fucking handler.”

Harry moves so his arse rubs softly against the crotch of Liam’s pants.

“So handle me.”

Liam groans, both because of how pleased Harry sounds with himself in the face of the typically appalling quality of his pun, and because his voice goes straight to Liam’s cock anyway.

“If you like the fucking view so much, I should fuck you over it.” Liam tweaks Harry’s nipple and smirks as Harry’s breath hitches and he pushes back against him. “Bend you over the railing and fuck your arse where anyone can see while you whine for more of my cock and try not to fall.”

Harry tenses and turns around in Liam’s hands, and _oh_ , that’s perfect, because Liam would _never_ , but Harry’s eyes are wide and apprehensive and Liam’s pretty sure it won’t hurt anyone to let Harry believe that a little longer.

“C’mere,” he whispers as his fingers dance over Harry’s forearm. They wrap around his wrist as he steps toward the door. “I want to fuck you so hard you bend the fucking railings trying to hold on.”

Harry’s other hand comes up to hold Liam’s neck as he somehow manages to stand even closer to Liam, his thigh pressing up hard against his cock as he whispers “Fuck me here.” His lashes are fluttering and heavy as he lowers his eyes to Liam’s cock, and Liam conceals a smirk because there’s no way Harry’s extricating himself from this that easily.

“You don’t want a view while I lick your arse until you’re weeping for it? I think Louis’s next door; he can step out and watch.”

And alright, that probably wasn’t fair, but it’s working, and the look on Harry’s face is almost too pretty for words. He’s panicking now, flushed and hard as fuck as he pulls against Liam, biting his lip and pleading.

“Please fuck me inside, Liam, fuck me inside, please.”

Liam pretends to deliberate.

“What would you do for it?”

“You can put it wherever you want,” Harry mumbles.

“Not exactly a novelty that, is it?” And Liam is honestly astonished that Harry can flush any harder than he already was. He strokes the line of Harry’s cock through his pants. “Try harder.”

“I’ll let you fuck me with Zayn,” Harry says desperately, “You want to, right? I bet he’d let you put it wherever you want… in me…like that.”

Liam stares and swallows and hopes that the looks he steals at Zayn aren’t really as transparent as all that.

“You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”

“Almost as much as you,” Harry counters, gasping as Liam grabs a handful of his crotch in retaliation.

“Get on the bed, Harry.”

And it’s like Harry always knows what he needs, what they all need, because Harry tilts his head back until Liam can feel his breath on his lips and says, “Put me there.”

He gets his hands around Harry’s skinny waist as he kisses him. He waits until Harry’s whimpering into it and pressing against Liam’s chest, because fuck but Harry likes being kissed, before he pulls away and puts all his strength into throwing Harry onto the bed.

Harry’s limbs flail in a way which Liam finds incredibly satisfying as he flies through the air. His long legs hit the bed at an almost dangerously awkward angle, open for Liam with his ankles splayed like it’s an invitation, and Liam should probably question why his dick finds Harry’s uncoordinated flailing so attractive, but Harry’s pushing himself up on his arms and his breath is hitching as Liam approaches, and all Liam can focus on is the fact that Harry’s nipples are so puffy and pink that he can fucking _tell_ through his soft white tee.

“I want to watch while you play with yourself.” And Harry palms his own cock through his tight pants, a perfect combination of awkward and desperate to please, but Liam smirks and firmly places Harry’s hands on his nipples.

“Here.”

“ _Liam_.” Harry pouts, and he looks almost reproachful as he arches into his own hands.

“Come on,” Liam says softly, reaching one hand inside Harry’s pants and closing around him through his briefs. “Do it for me.”

Harry’s breath stutters as he starts to rub his fingers over his nipples. Liam smirks and admires the view as they get even harder and Harry’s cock pulses in his hand. Harry’s lips are parted as he whines at the friction of the thin fabric over his nipples, and when Liam leans over and pinches one his hips press up into Liam’s hand.

“ _Fuck_ ,” Liam murmurs appreciatively as Harry mewls and looks down with wet lips at his own fingers on his nipples like he can’t look away. Harry’s nipples are so flushed and hard now that they’re pushing the fabric away from his chest. He almost looks like he’s about to faint. Liam’s loves to fuck him vulnerable like this, loves the way that Harry almost cries when he gets this aroused. He’s so hard watching it that it _hurts_.

“I wish you could see how gorgeous you are right now.”

“What?” Harry’s voice falters like he can’t work out if Liam’s taking the piss, and Harry’s constant uncertainty about whether it’s all real, whether he’s _really_ wanted, is so bloody endearing that Liam kisses his mouth as tenderly as he can.

“You look gorgeous like that, Harry. Touching yourself like you haven’t had a cock in months.”

“You’re the one who asked me to,” Harry accuses breathlessly, and Liam supposes that’s a fair call.

“I guess I’ll have to give you some attention then. ’S only fair.” And Harry’s arms actually put up resistance when he tries to pull them away, but then he moans and drops them like he can’t lift them anymore as Liam lifts up his shirt and licks at a puffy pink nipple.

“They’re so fucking pink and _swollen_ ,” Liam observes as he lazily plays with Harry’s other nipple. “You must be so sensitive here you’re almost sore.” Liam sucks hard, and Harry is making these tiny noises, somewhere between pants and cries as he pushes weakly at Liam’s chest. He grazes his teeth along one nipple and Harry whines in a note that Liam’s pretty sure none of them besides Zayn can even hit deliberately.

“If I fucked you with Zayn,” Liam says as he closes his teeth around a nipple that’s already slick from his attention, “we could suck them at the same time.” That’s when he bites down. And Harry starts _shaking_.

“God, please just fuck me, _Liam_ , I can’t…”

Liam can’t call it babbling, because Harry Styles speaks slowly at his _most_ coherent. It’s more of a hot, slow drag of throaty, moaned _sounds_ punctuated by gasps.

“Didn’t quite catch that, Hazza.”

And Harry’s apparently beyond caring _at all_ , because he loudly says, “I want your cock. I want to have it in me,” jutting hips coming off the bed, arching and demanding, and Liam’s cock throbs as he hopes like fuck that the hotel walls are soundproof, because he can see the headline now: ‘“I want your c**k!” yells Harry Styles at hotel’.

“You want my cock?”

Liam yanks Harry’s pants over his hips so fast that he tears the fabric.

“ _Please._ ”

“I want your legs over my shoulders”, Liam breathes over Harry’s lips as Harry struggles to kick his ankles out of his tight pants. “Have you ever been fucked like that before?”

And Harry flushes _all over_.

“Only with Louis.”

Harry’s words hit him like a train and Liam’s paralysed, because Harry’s eyes are wet and Liam can’t tell if it’s only lust or if it’s something Harry has to swallow every time Louis has another tantrum about his sexuality.

“We can-” Liam stumbles, because he doesn’t want to be another fucking journalist that Harry has to deal with: because he doesn’t want to ask if Harry will struggle to answer.

“No, I want to,” Harry says, wrapping his legs around Liam so tightly that Liam has to push his hips down onto the bed to make sure Harry doesn’t hurt his spine, because Liam _worries_. And if Liam’s a little clumsier than usual as he staggers to their luggage for the lube, he tries not to think about whether it’s because even though Harry needs more looking after than any of them, he always tries to look after them more than _anything_.

Liam holds both of Harry’s wrists and kisses the insides of them before he wraps Harry’s fingers around the frame of the headboard.

“Hold on for me. And tell me if bending is hurting you.”

“Don’t you want to bend me until I hurt, Liam?” Harry asks with his open, adorable, faux-innocent eyes. Liam delivers a playful smack to his hip and pulls Harry’s shirt up until it’s trapped under his armpits, hindering his arms and leaving his pink nipples exposed.

“If you try to let go,” he whispers as he pushes a finger against Harry’s arse, “I will pull out, and I will finish you on the balcony.”

Liam fastens his lips on Harry’s nipple as he puts his fingers inside him and Harry whines and angles his hips to get them deeper. Liam watches Harry’s fingers get a little pink as he uses them to pull up and then push down again, working himself on Liam’s fingers.

“Are the girls you fuck all made of glass?” Harry asks, and Liam strokes inside him until Harry’s hips jerk against his hand. “You always try to go so _slowly_. I want it _now_.”

Liam gives Harry a sweet smile, and then he straddles his chest, aligns a condom with the tip of his cock, and makes Harry put it all the way on without using his hands. Liam’s cock jumps at the way Harry’s glaring up at him by the time he’s almost there, his neck and his jaw straining as his pink tongue works as hard as it can. Vengeance is sweet.

“You’re such a prick,” Harry says as he tries to lick away his own spit from around his mouth and makes it worse.

Liam leans in as he lines up, and says, “ _Shut up_.” And Harry’s hips come up so hard off the bed as he pushes inside that their chests collide and Liam can feel Harry’s fucking heart, hammering like a drum, because Harry’s always so easy for this, for being pushed around and told how to take it, and Liam’s head slams into the headboard as he moans and tries not to just come apart over that.

He thrusts in and out slowly, holding onto Harry’s hip hard to stop Harry from taking it all at once. Liam’s rhythm staggers as Harry rocks back against him and tries to take more, because Harry’s so hot and tight inside that he _can’t_ be comfortable like that, and _God_ , Liam’s never had him open like this, his calves draped over Liam’s shoulders and his thighs warm and wet with sweat against Liam’s chest.

He stops thrusting at all when he finally feels his balls against Harry’s arse, just rolling his hips gently and kissing the sweat on Harry’s throat, because Harry’s eyes are so damp and Liam can feel his thighs straining, and Liam just wants to shake him and tell him that he’s so bloody gorgeous and _strong_.

“Don’t do that.” Harry’s voice is accusatory but so fucking honest and trusting as he looks straight into Liam’s eyes. “You made me like this tonight. Fuck me like I’m something that you _want_.”

Liam’s chest is aching as he slowly leans forward and finds the tendon throbbing in Harry’s neck. He closes his eyes as he sinks his teeth into it and thrusts in as hard as he can. Harry cries out and then his voice chokes in that tiny intake of breath that Harry always takes right before the tears fall.

“Like that, _like that_ ,” Harry tries to get out as Liam fucks him hard, and his arms are fucking trembling from strain when Liam grabs his hair and kisses him, but Harry never lets go.

Liam groans as Harry’s hips push up against him and slide wetly over his skin on every thrust, even as the muscles in Harry’s thighs start to cave so that Liam’s taking almost all of his weight.

“You’re fucking beautiful, you know that?” Liam tweaks Harry’s nipple and watches as a tear falls down Harry’s face.

“ _Liam_ , I want-” And Harry almost hisses as Liam’s hand quickly fists around his cock where it’s flushed and leaking against his stomach.

Liam kisses his neck, admiring the bruise that’s already forming before he licks at the frantic pulse in Harry’s wrist.

“Like you would ever, _ever_ , not be someone that I want, you idiotic, beautiful mess.”

And Harry shudders and comes all over that fucking butterfly on his stomach, and Liam only _looks_ at his cum dripping off one wing as Harry’s arse clenches around him before he spills for so long he almost thinks he’s going to die.

And Harry holds onto the headboard all through his orgasm with tears in his eyes. Liam prises his fingers away and then has no idea where to put them because Harry’s limp in his arms, so he just holds onto them for a while.

“Hey. Hey, you’re alright.”

And Harry snorts and falls asleep with his head on Liam’s chest.

*

It’s dark when Liam wakes up, and Harry isn’t in the bed. Liam groans and staggers out of bed. Liam hates getting out of bed at the best of times, but if Harry isn’t here, he’s definitely either off being forlorn alone somewhere, or at a party that’s going on in one of the others’ hotel rooms without Liam, either of which is unacceptable. Never mind that Harry has his own bed. Liam is pretty certain that they only get double rooms anymore for the purpose of what Simon once frustratedly called ‘maintaining an appearance of normality’. Even Zayn and Niall are probably sharing a bed tonight, because Niall’s quite good for and quite partial towards snuggling when he’s not grumpy.

Liam pulls some pants on in the dark and checks the balcony first, because if Harry’s anywhere near the railings again, Liam’s going to affectionately murder him.

“Where are you, you curly-headed weirdo?” Liam calls. He opens the bedroom door and finds that the light in the kitchen is on. Harry isn’t in the kitchen drinking milk, as he has a habit of doing naked in the night at other people’s houses. He’s naked and wrapped in a blanket which is loose around his shoulders, exposing the arc of the birds tattooed under his collar bone. Harry is shivering as he sits in the shadows on the carpet, his arms wrapped around his knees, and Liam remembers how sensitive his chest was in bed the night after he’d had them done, how Harry had _shivered_ under his hands. 

“Hazza, what are you doing?”

Harry looks up and his eyes are a little pink around the edges as he leans his head back against the wall. Liam wonders if it’s because he knows that Louis is on the other side of that wall. Liam walks over and sits beside him before he wraps an arm around his shoulders.

“If I was snoring as awfully as all that, you could’ve kneed me in the balls.”

Harry gives a little half-laugh and wipes furiously at his eyes, though his flushed face is dry.

“Hey.” Liam rubs circles into Harry’s shoulder, and Harry leans into it when he kisses Harry’s forehead, even though there’s stubble all over Liam’s jaw. “You’re going to get another cold, you fucking handful, you know that.”

“Liam,” Harry articulates slowly, “you know how in interviews…” He frowns as though the words won’t get out quite like he wants them to. “Why don’t they always ask Louis about…if we’re dating? Is it just…” Harry’s shoulders start to hunch in on themselves and Liam swallows as he watches the birds appear to fly into Harry’s chest as the sentence hangs in his throat.

“They used to do that. I’m pretty sure Louis always gave them so much lip that they stopped, mate. You’re just too nice, Harry.”

Harry gives him a tiny smile that almost reaches his eyes. Harry always tries so hard to be nice, to the journalists, to the fans, to Louis and Liam those times when they lose it for a second and snap at him, even when he’s already so fucking tired he can’t stand, when he’s stretched so far between all the people who want a piece of him. Liam carries him to bed and lays him out and kisses a path down his stomach and tries for tonight to make Harry feel as _nice_ as he deserves.

*


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The closest thing in this fic to a gangbang in this chapter, not sure if I'd call it that but please be careful if that makes you uncomfortable. : ) 
> 
> Inappropriate pass the parcel references. Angst on a hill, angst on a bus.

It’s been a completely normal day in what is apparently Louis Tomlinson’s life lately, meaning that everything is as far from normal as possible, and Louis’s pretty sure that every other person around him is losing it, and is in a perpetual state of disbelief due the fact that none of them appear to _understand_ that.

First it was Liam cheerfully calling out “Put your back into it, Malik!” as telltale loud banging noises came through the walls of the bunks while Louis was trying to drink his coffee at 6:45a.m. Louis supposes it’s a blessing in disguise, as finding a diplomatic way to wake Harry up in the morning has never been easy. What Louis couldn’t get over was the fact that Niall was in the bunks _with_ them. Not with them in bed, but stubbornly posted in his own bunk with earplugs.

Having apparently decided that no place or surface is safe from his band’s sexual activities, Niall’s taken to protecting his own small area by blockading himself in his bunk with packets of Milky Ways and the curtains literally duct-taped shut while he watches ‘80s classics at full volume, which is absolutely _great_ , because now when Louis’s not listening to Liam and Harry fucking while he’s trying to sleep, he’s listening to _Back to the Future_ while he’s trying to sleep, and Louis’s literally going to strangle all of them individually.

Then in the afternoon after soundcheck it was Perrie on the phone loudly interrogating Zayn about the finer points of everyone fucking Harry like it was a perfectly socially acceptable thing to do.

“It’s like, the best game of pass the parcel ever!” Her voice had piped happily through the phone. “Do you ever, like, all get in a circle and pass him around in your laps?” Liam had patted Niall on the back as he choked on his vanilla milkshake, while Harry buried his flushed face in his arms mumbling, “I’m going to die.”

Zayn had only blushed and rubbed his hand over his forehead in affectionate embarrassment.

“Perrie, oh my God, I can’t believe you just said that.”

After he had eventually distracted her and said goodbye, Louis had given him his best judgemental look.

“Your relationship is weird.”

“So’s yours,” Zayn had smiled, which was cryptic as always because Louis and Eleanor were in an ‘off’ phase of their on and off thing.

“Like, it doesn’t bother you at all that your girlfriend actively tries to persuade you to get involved in gang bangs with other guys?”

“Nah,” Zayn had said affably. “I love her.”

Louis cursed Zayn’s unattainable serenity.

After the show, Louis had taken a long walk around the venue to prevent anyone from interfering with his high with their weird-arse behaviour, only to enter their trailer and find Harry being weird all alone on the sofa.

“Uh, Harry…what exactly is it that you imagine you’re doing?” Louis had asked, because Harry definitely appeared to be watching Animal Planet and weeping, and Louis hoped he was missing something here.

Harry turned around and started making large expressive hand gestures as he tried to explain.

“The baby antelope got separated from its mum.”

“Alright then, Harry,” Louis had said as he backed away slowly.

After they’d headed off and been on the road for about an hour, there was a problem with the bus and they stopped. Louis had been hoping it would mean a peaceful hour of lying in his bunk writing lyrics, a hope which is dashed when he looks through his curtains and sees Harry climbing over a fence into a field. Louis sighs and hits himself in the face with his notebook before he heads off after him, as apparently no one else is _watching_ him. If they were, Louis assumes he wouldn’t be being allowed to disappear into a field somewhere and get abducted or attacked in the dark by confused cows, for fuck’s sake.

Following an attempt to vault over the fence that ends in a less dignified fashion than Louis would have liked, he catches up with Harry as he approaches a hill.

“Oi, Harry! What the fuck do you think you’re up to?”

“Louis!” Harry cries happily. “Run up this hill with me, Louis!”

“Like fuck will I do that-” Louis begins, but Harry is already legging it. And Louis is only running after him up this fucking hill because Harry’s likely to do himself an injury if Louis isn’t watching him, and Louis’s not going to be responsible for carrying five feet and eleven inches of flailing idiot with a broken ankle through this fucking field.

He’s breathless before he gets to the top, and Harry’s already collapsed on his back under the stars, so Louis lies down beside him. Louis watches the rapid rise and fall of Harry’s chest and Harry seems to sense his gaze and turns towards him. Harry watches him with a serious look for minute, and then it’s like he finds something in Louis’s face, and his lips break into a grin before he sticks his pink tongue out.

“What?” Louis asks. Harry only sticks his tongue out further. Louis smacks him in the ribs. And then they’re wrestling on top of some hill in a field, and for once no one is staring at them except for a handful of stars strewn all over the place, and Louis forgets to think about anything except for what all of Harry’s angles feel like in his hands.

He’s still laughing when Harry gets on top of him and kisses him, and Louis _shouldn’t_ , because he’s been trying to stop using Harry for _this_ , and Louis feels like the fact that it’s already a habit he’s struggling with is a sign that at some point something went drastically wrong with him and everyone around him.

He fists his hand in Harry’s hair and pulls him into him.

Harry’s tongue inside his mouth is sweet and wet, and Louis arches into it and opens wider for him as Harry sighs inside him like it’s where he belongs. When their lips are slick and they’re panting, Harry leans back on his knees until he’s sitting in Louis’s lap and pulls off his top.

Louis licks Harry’s spit off his lips as he watches Harry’s nipples peak in the cold.

“What’re you doing?”

“Getting naked,” Harry says with an adorable grin. “This is a great place for getting naked.”

“This is literally the worst place to get naked at our present location. This is probably private property. We could be arrested.”

“They can’t arrest both of us,” Harry says, and Louis considers trying to explain how the law works before Harry starts circling his hips in his lap and short-circuits his brain.

“We don’t have…stuff,” Louis says weakly.

Harry puts one hand in his pocket and triumphantly produces a strawberry-flavoured condom and a lubricant packet. Louis stares.

“Not to be rude or anything, but Harry why the fuck are you packing flavoured condoms?”

“I think Niall’s been putting them in all my pockets when I’m not looking,” Harry tells him, and yep, losing it completely, all of them, Louis thinks as he reaches for Harry’s fly.

Harry fingers himself fast, leaning back on one arm and whining as he impatiently tries to stretch for Louis as far as he can. Louis always gets hard over how desperate Harry always is for this, like Louis’s cock inside him is the best sensation Harry’s ever had. Louis’s favourite times are all the times that Harry’s initiated it, crawled into his bunk late at night embarrassed and moaning as he murmurs “Can I touch you, Louis? I got ready.” Harry always holds Louis’s hand like he’s so shy, tangling their fingers together as he guides Louis’s hand to the place where he’s already hot and stretched and waiting for him.

Louis wants to tell Harry that he can always slow down, wants to promise that he’ll still be lying here when Harry’s ready, that he couldn’t leave Harry right now if their fucking bus drove away. That he could watch Harry’s back arch under the stars for more hours than he can imagine.

All Louis can manage as Harry positions his cock is a shaky breath and “Look at me.”

Harry’s eyes instantly fall on Louis’s and Louis can feel that he’s flushing as hard as Harry is at how intimate that is as the head of his cock pushes inside Harry’s body.

“Fuck, Louis,” Harry chokes as Louis gets all the way inside, his pupils blown and his hands anxiously kneading Louis’s chest as he tries to adjust, and when Louis works out how to breathe he tells him, “It’s alright, I’ve got you.”

Louis rubs his hands over his stomach, eating up the play of the starlight over Harry’s tattoos as his stomach muscles quiver under his hands. Louis strokes over the tattoos again and again, because he’s noticed Harry gets off on his inked skin being touched, being licked and bitten and come all over, like he remembers the needles and it only sweetens the pleasure.

Harry moves slowly into Louis’s fingers on his skin as he begins to stop hurting. He tentatively angles Louis deeper and Louis’s hands come down to hold his hips. He can’t look away from Harry’s eyes, and Harry stares at him with a wide, almost shell-shocked look as he rides him in tight circles, because Louis’s never been great at looking at Harry’s eyes when they fuck and it’s like Harry’s afraid that if he blinks he’ll turn away.

Louis arches up harder and pulls Harry down on his cock. He shivers at Harry’s fingers splaying above his collar bone, softly touching Louis’s pulse. He hits the right angle and Harry throws his head back and drives his hips down hard, curls framed by stars and tumbling around his face. Louis’s fingernails are almost stabbing into Harry’s hips as he tries not to come from watching Harry’s arched throat work around his name.

Harry’s eyes are heavy-lidded as he looks down at Louis and strokes his cock. Louis touches his stomach and he watches it tense as Harry gets closer. Louis’s always fascinated by Harry’s body right as he’s about to come, taut and holding back with every muscle as he tries to give Louis pleasure for as long as he can. Harry curves forward as his thrusts get erratic, burying his hands inside the fabric of Louis’s shirt and pushing it aside as he puts his palm over Louis’s heart.

Harry cries out, and Louis’s heart beats fast under his hand. Louis watches, on the edge and in awe, as his fingers dig pink indents inside the ferns on Harry’s hips, before his whole body arches and he comes inside him, shivering as he feels the wet heat of Harry’s cum in the night air, all over Harry’s hand, above Louis’s heart.

Louis lies and stares at the stars for a while as Harry tries to get his jeans on in the starlight. He can hear people calling their names now, and Louis’s pretty sure Simon’s going to be on the phone and merciless when he gets back. Louis doesn’t want to leave quite yet.

Eventually Harry sits beside him, wrapping his arms around his long legs. Louis watches the way that Harry’s eyelashes fan out and plaster themselves to the fine layer of sweat on his face as he blinks slowly. 

“I never want to come down,” Harry says.

Louis feels as though he’s falling under water. And Louis looks away.

*

Liam finds Zayn leaning on the side of their trailer and smoking. Liam had known that Zayn was probably going to have something phallic in his mouth if he managed to catch him alone, but that doesn’t make his task any easier. Liam tries to lean casually against the trailer on one arm, gets distracted by Zayn’s lips, and falls several inches sideways as he rests his hand on thin air. 

“What’s up, Liam?” Zayn acknowledges his appearance, speaking slowly and staring off into space as Liam grits his teeth and heroically grins through the jarring pain in his arm.

“Not a lot,” Liam says, going for airy and casual and landing somewhere around airy and thick. “So Harry told me the other day that you might be interested in sharing him, so to speak.”

Zayn takes a drag and raises his eyebrows.

“Yeah?”

“Like, sexually.”

Zayn nods, and Liam hopes that the gravel he’s standing on opens up and swallows him, because you never come back from failure at this sheer volume, you just never do.

“Are you going to say anything? Anything at all.”

Zayn takes a last drag and turns to Liam.

“I’d say that the way you talk, Liam, you’d think I’d never told you how handsome you are.”

Zayn gives him his beautiful, bright-eyed grin as he walks back inside the bus, and Liam tries not to be that guy who grins like an idiot all day.

*

Whoever thought it was a wonderful idea to play truth or dare is an arsehole and Louis wants nothing to do with them for the next twenty-four hours. Never mind that it was probably him.

It had all started when Niall was getting ready for a date with Barbara Palvin. What with it being their fourth date and all, Louis had tried to be a gentleman and asked if he wanted them all to clear out in case he wanted to bring her back to the venue later.

Niall had stopped cramming packets of Maltesers into his ten pockets and stared at him like he’d grown a second head.

“Why the fuck would I want to do that?”

“To remind her that when you’re not on dates with her, you’re performing in a band with no less than four incredibly attractive and charming lads,” Louis had replied, as he’d thought it was obvious.

“Ah, that’d go down well,” Niall had retorted. “Follow me, Barbara, I bet you’ve always wanted a grand tour of a place where four incredibly attractive and charming lads drink and fart. Never you mind the condom wrappers and empty bottles of lubricant all over the floor when I’ve _put_ the bin four metres away from their bunks, because apparently constant bumming fucking _cripples_ your ability to throw and walk. On your left we have Louis Tomlinson’s lovely collection of odd socks that he can’t be fucked to deal with. You wouldn’t think beside the toaster was the logical place for it, but it is. And on your right we have the broken cold tap in the shower, which makes trying to shower such a godawful experience that you always have to get drunk first, courtesy of Liam and Harry.”

“I think that was Liam’s fault,” Harry had volunteered, and Louis had been grudgingly forced to admit, if only to himself, that Niall possibly had a point.

Somehow Niall’s absence on one of their few free nights had led them to believe that playing truth or dare would be a laugh and a rollicking good time. By the time Louis’s finished his fifth glass of gin and watched Harry gracelessly execute Liam’s dare to imitate Louis’s come-face, he’s fuming and fervently wishing himself back to playing truth or dare in the X Factor house and asking each other deeply uninspired questions about the approximately 1.5 girls they’d each slept with then. 

“Truth or dare, Liam?” Louis shoots back, as if they’d had a proper turn system in the first place it’s beginning to be lost to Liam and Louis’s war of attrition.

“Truth.”

“How many times have you jerked off thinking about coming in Zayn’s hair?”

Louis schools his face into an innocent look and feels immensely proud of himself as Liam sputters into his drink. Harry is looking back and forth between them looking utterly fascinated.

“Never,” Zayn says solemnly, “Because that would be fantasising about his untimely demise.”

“Five,” Liam gets out through gritted teeth as he flushes and deliberately avoids eye contact with Zayn. Zayn’s hand comes up to his hair protectively.

“What’ll it be, Hazza?” Liam drunkenly wraps his arm around Harry’s shoulders and Louis wonders what indignity is about to befall him next. Whatever he’s expecting when Harry picks, it isn’t Liam’s filthy whisper as he tells him, “I dare you to fuck all of us in a circle. Like what Perrie said on the phone. Work everyone over here on the floor.”

Harry spills his drink all over himself as his eyes fly up to Louis’s, and Louis’s pants get tighter as he looks down at Harry’s hard nipples in the thin wet fabric.

“Whatever, Harry, it’s not in your contract or anything,” Louis tries to joke, and something sets in Harry’s jaw. He’s staring at Louis with a sweet, drunk heat as he asks, “Who’s first?” 

Louis plans ways for Perrie to die as Liam pulls Harry into his lap. Louis isn’t as drunk as he needs to be to deal with this shit. Zayn walks over to nearest bottle of lubricant and then leans down and kisses Harry, languid and wet as he passes the bottle to Liam. Harry is clumsy in Liam’s hands as Liam pulls the wet shirt over his head, his spine arching back so ludicrously as Liam lets go of his waist that Louis thinks he’d fall if he had anywhere to go except for into Liam’s erection, which is pressed against his arse through the fabric of Liam’s white Calvin Klein briefs.

The head of Liam’s cock is pressing into a patch of fabric that’s damp and almost transparent with pre-cum as he kisses Harry and gets Harry’s belt undone, and Zayn is leaning back with his fly undone and casually palming his cock as he admires the view. Louis tries to recall what it was like when they all pretended to be normal as he caves in and wraps his hand around his cock inside his pants. Liam and Harry’s lips are making obscene, wet noises as they make out, Harry’s hands are pressed into Liam’s neck as he almost never comes up for air, and Louis wants to die as he watches Liam pull Harry’s briefs down along with his pants until they’re lashing his calves tight together.

“Harry, you look so pretty like that,” Zayn says, and Louis looks at Zayn and tries to work out if he’s just pretty high or so high that he’s ultimately going to pass out holding a waffle again.

Harry wraps his arms around Liam’s shoulders and hides his face in them as Liam lifts his hips up and thrusts his slick fingers into his arse.

“Aaw, someone’s shy,” Liam says. “Spread your arse with your hands so Louis can watch.” And Louis’s going to either kiss Liam or smack the shit out of him.

“Fuck you, Payne,” Harry mumbles, and Liam smacks his arse and grins as he flicks his wrist, making Harry fucking _corkscrew_ on his fingers.

“Love to, angel face, but you won’t get a dick in you until you stop fucking whining and show Louis and Zayn your arse.”

Harry moans as he reaches around and spreads himself so that Louis can see Liam’s knuckles vanishing into Harry’s body. Louis’s cock jumps in his lap. Harry’s shoulder blades strain so prettily as his fingers knead his arse that Louis wants to throw him on his stomach and jam his cock inside him until he _cries_. Harry’s hips are circling convulsively in Liam’s lap like he’s a fucking pretty-haired rag doll, aching and empty and wanting even as his tight arse stretches around the thickest part of Liam’s fingers again and again.

“Play with his hair, he likes that,” Zayn breathes as he parts his thighs. Liam smirks as he pulls his fingers out and wipes them on Harry’s five hundred dollar pants. He undoes Harry’s Alexander McQueen scarf from around his hair and Harry arches and struggles weakly as Liam ties it tightly around his wrists behind his back. Harry’s hair falls over his eyes and Louis moans over the hopeless way he tosses his head as he tries to look at them all stroking their cocks.

“Do you like that, Harry? Having your pretty hair played with while you get fucked?”

Harry glares at Liam, but he’s pinioned between the scarf tying his wrists and his tight pants at the top of his calves, coercing his lean body into an obscene backwards arch that displays his stomach and his flushed, hard cock.

“Say it so that we can all hear you and I’ll fuck you.” Liam strokes a condom over his cock and grabs Harry’s arse. He lifts Harry off his lap and fucking _holds_ Harry so that he can feel the thick head of Liam’s cock pressing against his arse. Louis tries not to whine as he watches the first inch push inside, watches Harry’s own weight already trying to drag him down along Liam’s cock.

“I like having my pretty hair played with while I get fucked,” Harry repeats, defeated and almost sobbing, and Liam thrusts up hard as gravity forces Harry onto his cock as far as he can take it.

“Yeah you do,” Liam grins as he wraps an arm around Harry’s waist and starts to thrust inside him.

“I hate you,” Harry gets out in little gasps as he bounces up and down in Liam’s lap, and Liam smirks and kisses him lazily.

“Do you think I should find another one of his scarves and put it in his mouth, Zayn?”

“Nah,” Zayn says, “I want to put my cock in his throat.”

And Louis doesn’t know if Zayn actually wants to do that or if he’s just taking advantage of Harry’s weaknesses, because Harry moans like Zayn just swallowed his cock. Louis feels a prick of jealousy as he thinks about Zayn’s fingers in Harry’s hair and Zayn’s cock in Harry’s throat, about all the things that he’s absorbed about turning Harry on.

Louis fists his cock hard as Liam twists Harry’s curls around his fingers and pulls, making Harry jerk into his hands and whine. Zayn reaches over and splays his fingers in Harry’s hair, and Louis’s pretty sure that’s the most contrived excuse for Malik and Payne to hold hands that they’ve come up with so far. Harry lets out a little sob and Liam wraps a hand around his cock, but his arms jerk hard against the scarf, like he’s trying to slap it away.

“Not yet,” Harry breathes, and Louis flushes as Liam’s eyes come up to meet his over Harry’s shoulder.

“So that’s how it is,” Liam smirks affectionately as he lets go. “You gonna moan his name when I come in your arse too, you little shit?”

“Shut the fuck up, Liam,” Louis snaps before he gives up and breathes, “Look back at me.”

Harry is flushed as he turns his head to the side and slowly raises his eyes to Louis’s. His eyelashes are wet and heavy and Louis has to catch his breath. Louis never has to say ‘ _stay like that_ ’. It’s like Harry _wants_ it like that as he cranes his neck and his eyelids flutter as he looks from Louis’s face to his cock and back again. Liam is thrusting hard now and Louis licks his lips as he watches Harry’s curls fall into his eyes every time that Liam thrusts up inside him.

When Liam moans and comes, Harry’s eyes widen and his mouth falls open as his frame shudders uncontrollably. When Liam unties his hands, Harry fucking _crawls_ to Louis, and Louis has to squeeze his cock hard so he doesn’t come from just watching.

“How do you want me?” Harry’s voice is low and intoxicated, and Louis’s cock pulses.

“Love that dialogue,” Liam says solemnly.

“I think I saw a porno like this actually,” Zayn is saying, and Louis would tell them all to sod off if he wasn’t busy dragging Harry into his lap by the hair and kissing him hard.

“Ride it,” he whispers, and Harry nods breathlessly. “I want you to make me come.”

Zayn tosses Harry a cherry-flavoured condom, and seriously, Louis thinks, where are these things _coming_ from, but then he’s distracted by the sensation of Harry’s curls against his face as Harry kisses him again. Harry leans back and puts the condom on Louis with such a careful, focused look that Louis swallows and his pulse throbs in his throat. Harry looks up at his eyes as if to check that it’s alright, and Louis kisses him with his mouth open and wet until Harry looks at him with that tiny, bright-eyed smile that he always gets when he’s reassured.

“You need more lube…” Louis tells him, pressing his fingers softly against Harry’s arse, wondering where the bottle is but not wanting to stop touching Harry for a second.

“No, no,” Harry murmurs stubbornly, “I’m wet enough. I need more of you.”

“Wow,” Liam says. “It’s like we’re not even here.”

Louis hardly hears him as he stares at Harry, and then he’s kissing him and clawing at Harry’s spine like he’s trying to get inside his skin. Harry pulls Louis’s top over his head before he wraps his arms around his neck and kisses him back, licking inside his mouth and tasting like Bombay Sapphire and sweetness underneath as he rubs his cock against Louis’s stomach. His knees are on either side of Louis’s thighs, and Harry raises up and spreads himself over Louis’s cock. Louis mouths at Harry’s nipple as Harry lowers back onto his cock, and Harry whines and buries his face in Louis’s throat. Louis licks at the sweat on Harry’s chest and when he kisses him Harry moans like he likes the taste as Louis _feels_ him around the base of his cock.

And what Louis can’t get over is the _unreality_ of Harry, wrapped around him and taking him inside him and fastened onto Louis’s throat with his wet lips and his hot breath rushing out over Louis’s skin before he has to inhale. Harry’s this glistening, gorgeous creature in his lap as he leans back and looks down at Louis while he works up and down on his cock, hips rolling like a fucking wet dream, and Louis can’t understand how he’s _real_ and someone that Louis can _touch_.

“ _Louis_ ,” Harry murmurs into his throat, and Louis feels the butterfly sensation of Harry’s eyelashes against his skin. The steady, coaxing rhythm of Harry’s hips is making Louis’s mind melt away until all that he can concentrate on is the heat that’s coming out of Harry like a star and his cock throbbing inside him. He gets his fingers in Harry’s hair and pulls his head back, and Harry arches in his lap, his collar bones shining with perspiration. Louis pants as he watches a droplet of sweat slink over one of the birds on Harry’s chest and wet the hard pink edge of Harry’s nipple. He reaches for Harry’s jaw and the throb of Harry’s pulse under his hand feels so sweet that Louis has to close his eyes because _God_ , he’s fucking _beautiful_.

Louis’s hips thrust hard inside Harry of their own accord and Harry moans and lets his forehead fall against Louis’s, his hand coming up over Louis’s and pressing it harder against his skin. And Louis does the most stupid, awful thing possible, and just whispers “Fuck, I want you.”

Louis’s eyes fly open in shock as he feels something wet and hot hit his stomach. Harry’s arms are still wrapped tightly around his shoulders, but he’s shivering in Louis’s lap, his pulse trembling under their hands. Louis puts his fingers in the sticky mess on his abdomen and holds them in front of his face, looking at them in shock as a flush spreads over his face. _I didn’t even touch you_ , Louis thinks, wanting to curl in on himself as it all hits him at once: Zayn’s heavy breathing beside him, Liam’s soft, awed whistle and the lurching of his own heartbeat.

“I think I’ve had too much gin,” Louis manages to articulate as he pulls out without coming. “Besides, I have _a lot_ of cum to wipe off my stomach. Wow, Harry, just wow.”

And Louis looks away from Harry’s face, because Harry’s looking at him like he’s just been slapped. Harry swallows and turns to Zayn.

“Zayn, I’m sorry, I can still-”

“Don’t worry about it, Harry,” Zayn says with a relaxed, affectionate smile. “I was gonna call Perrie tonight anyway.”

Zayn gets up and wanders off to the bunks looking incongruously serene with a massive erection. Louis takes off the condom and ties it, shrugging off Harry’s hand as Harry tries to ask if he’s okay. Louis’s limbs feel stiff as he gets up, walks to the bathroom and locks the door behind him. He thrusts into his tight fist once before he comes all over his stomach, biting down hard on his lip until it hurts. And Louis leans back and bangs his head on the fucking door so hard that Liam calls out in alarm to check if he’s alright, because it’s _unfair_ , how Harry’s fucking prettier than a girl, how Louis’s shivering at the feeling of his cum dripping over Harry’s on his abdomen.

Louis waits for a long time before his breathing evens out, feeling like he’s choking on air, because he never even wanted to wonder what Harry feels when he’s alone, never asked to be allowed inside him, but it’s the easiest, most painful thing in the world.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hello 
> 
> [Sugarhill Park @ Tumblr](https://sugarhillpark.tumblr.com/)


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Happy New Year all! Zarry sex in this chapter. Also a (brief, non-explicit) guy/girl scene with Harry/Cara at the end of this chapter if you wanna avoid any non-clearly gay stuff.

Harry plays with the hem of his jeans on the sofa and thinks about the last conversation that he had with Louis. Louis hadn’t touched him at all for a whole week after they’d played truth or dare, and Harry felt like he was about to lose his mind. Liam had apparently gotten fed up with Harry’s nervous fidgeting and constant need for attention, as he’d forcefully escorted him out of the bunks with his hands on his shoulders and pushed him in Louis’s general direction.

“Go talk to him.”

Louis was standing alone in the kitchen, pairing odd socks with each other next to the toaster, as he’d apparently taken Niall’s comments personally. He was wearing a long-sleeved top that looked soft, and Harry wanted to reach out and touch him through the fabric. Harry stood awkwardly in front of him in the kitchen, waiting for Louis to look up.

“I think the blue one and the pink one look good together,” he said finally, and Louis glanced up from what he was doing.

“Blue and pink, you reckon?”

“Yeah. They look good. You look good.”

Louis’s eyes flickered and he turned away a little as he went back to his pile of socks.

“Hey, Lou…I’m sorry if I made it weird, the other night.”

Louis didn’t even look up.

“What are you talking about?”

“When we played truth or dare…” Harry said, feeling like a complete idiot as Louis looked him straight in the eyes with his trademark unimpressed look.

“Why would it be weird?”

Harry could feel himself flushing badly.

“I came on your stomach and you left for half an hour…”

Louis huffed out a sigh.

“Dramatic much, Harry? I _left_ all the way to the bathroom for a face-washer to get the cum off.”

“I just thought that-”

“It’s not like it was about me. You were too sensitive and wasted, is all. Not a big deal, right?”

And Louis did touch him then, clapped him on the shoulder with a tight, forced squeeze that felt so unlike Louis that Harry wanted to grab his face with his hands and push up against him until Louis held onto his hips and licked at his bottom lip and felt like _Louis_ again.

“Right,” Harry swallowed. His voice sounded thick and weak in his ears, and the smile that Louis gave him as he walked away was a little thin. Harry thought it was probably his fault.

Zayn elbows him in the ribs.

“Hey, no moping about Louis. Not in my house.”

“I wasn’t moping,” Harry protests, but Zayn just gives him an imperious look.

“What were you doing then?”

“I was …thinking hard about…stuff,” Harry falters, and he can’t help smiling in defeat as Zayn’s haughty expression cracks into that sweet smile he gets when he laughs, where his eyes crinkle around the edges.

“Tommo’s a bastard. He’s a lovable bastard, and he’s our bastard, but he’s a bastard. Now quit pouting on my sofa. You look too fit when you do that and Perrie’s going to come home and leave me for you.”

Harry hides a smile behind his arm. Perrie has her own apartment, but she’s around almost every night and Zayn says ‘come home’ like he’s always home wherever Perrie is. She’s resolutely installed her giant polar bear soft toy in the living room, and Zayn doesn’t complain _at all_. The concept of either of them leaving for anyone is so ridiculous that Harry almost starts giggling.

Harry’s already been sleeping at Zayn’s place in London for the better part of a week. They had one week off between legs of the tour and Zayn had offered, because Harry always gets lonely when he’s at his own place in London all alone. Harry hadn’t wanted to go and visit his mum and Gemma for such a short time, because even though Harry loved touring, seeing them always made it much harder to leave again. Louis always invited Harry to visit with his family, but this time he hadn’t.

Louis had actually _patted him on the back_ when they hugged goodbye, like he was a fan or something, and Harry had spent their flight feeling wretchedly embarrassed because he was crying and Zayn kept offering him tissues and pieces of pick ‘n’ mix that he’d stolen from Niall and smuggled onto the plane. Harry admires Zayn’s stealth, but he doesn’t envy him; Harry knows that Niall is going to remember that until the day that he dies and will in all likelihood pee in Zayn’s hair gel.

Harry grins across the sofa and digs the arch of his foot softly into Zayn’s crotch.

“I thought you said we had half an hour before she came home.”

Zayn rubs Harry’s foot and lowers his eyelashes as he smiles.

“What about it?”

“You know like, how when you’re a host you’re meant to entertain people? I’m _really_ bored. Don’t you want to entertain me?”

Harry’s grin widens and he wriggles his foot as he feels Zayn’s cock start to fill against his arch. Zayn grabs his calf and holds him there. 

“Are you calling me boring? Do you wanna take this out to the hall? Do you wanna take this upstairs?”

“I wanna take it wherever you want,” Harry teases, poking his tongue out as he brings up a hand to finger his mouth.

“If that’s the way it has to be, then that’s the way it has to be,” Zayn says solemnly, before lunging forward, grabbing Harry around the thighs, and heaving him onto his shoulders.

“Put me down,” Harry laughs, trying to lift his head from somewhere in the vicinity of the arch of Zayn’s back, but Zayn has a tight grip on his thighs. Zayn gives his arse a smack as he makes his way toward the stairs.

“Don’t worry Harry, I’ll put you on the floor. I heard you like that.”

Harry flushes and buries his face in the fabric of Zayn’s shirt. Fucking Twitter.

“If you drop me on the stairs, Simon will eat you.”

“If I drop you on the stairs, I promise I’ll go down on you until you can’t walk. Hand on my heart, Harry.” Zayn says earnestly, and Harry swallows as he feels his cock getting hard against Zayn’s shoulder.

Zayn deposits Harry in a tangled pile of limbs on a single bed in a guest room. He’s already had Harry on his stomach here. Harry remembers what it felt like as his fingers tangled in the sheets trying to get purchase, Zayn’s breath wet and heady on his neck as his hips pushed against Harry’s arse. Harry loved the way that Zayn’s cock went deep like that, hitting that spot over and over until Harry came all over the duvet.

Harry wonders if Zayn likes it in here because it’s such a tight space. The single bed makes you get on top of each other if you want to fit, thighs entwining and hands all over the place, whether you want to touch each other or pass out together. Harry’s seen Zayn and Perrie napping in here more than once already, their perfect hair all messed up and gorgeous on their pillow. He wishes he had someone like that. Harry can never get used to having more rooms than he can actually put stuff in with no one around to fill them all up.

Harry asks people over as much as he can. The girls always assume he only wanted them over for a shag. And Harry gives in sometimes, caves under their soft lips on his and falls to the floor with them, but he always feels embarrassed afterwards as he watches them get their stuff and leave. He knows what they probably think about him: that it’ll be another girl by tonight and he wants them to get out after he’s come. Harry never knows what to ask to get them to hang around, so he just watches and feels like an arsehole. Most of them get tired of getting papped anyway.

Nick Grimshaw comes over sometimes, but he usually just elbows Harry in the ribs and tells him to get a life while they play Tomb Raider. They had messed around once. Partly because everyone kept saying that they did, and partly because they’d thought it was a good idea to start finishing leftover Scotch at one in the afternoon on a Tuesday. Nick had lasted for about five minutes of making out on the sofa before abruptly standing up and saying, “Oh my God, you’re like twelve years old. I’m going to go wash my mouth out with soap and call my mother.”

Harry feels less clumsy in his skin as Zayn rubs against him through the close-fitting fabric of their jeans, heavy eyelashes fluttering over hazel eyes above him on the bed. Harry had found Liam and Zayn asleep here once, a long time ago after a party. They were still in all their clothes and Liam was pressed against Zayn’s back with his arm wrapped around him, his broad chest rising and falling slowly.

Harry was pretty sure that Liam had a hard-on and had thought it was a fantastic time to embarrass him, but when he’d gone to lean over the bed Zayn’s eyes had flashed open as though he’d never been asleep. He’d placed a finger on his lips, his face just a little flushed as he looked at Harry with his steady, dark eyes. Harry had smiled and left as quietly as he could manage. He thought it was nice that one of them could still have a secret.

Harry parts his thighs suggestively for Zayn, but Zayn shakes his head and smiles as he hooks his thumbs inside Harry’s pants and drags them down.

“I’m hungry,” Zayn says, looking innocently up at Harry from under long eyelashes, pupils blown up wide and dark as he hovers over Harry’s cock. Harry arches his hips as he feels Zayn’s breath on the inside of his thighs. Zayn never stops looking at Harry’s eyes as he rolls a condom over Harry’s cock and licks it from the base to the top. Harry bites his lip as Zayn wraps his lips around his cock, his thick bottom lip dragging wetly along the skin.

“Alright, Harry?” Zayn asks lazily as his lips come off Harry’s cock with a wet, smacking sound that makes Harry whine and arch as he watches Zayn’s spit shine on his cock. The cherry-flavoured condom is turning Zayn’s lips candy red, and Zayn looks into Harry’s eyes with a feral smirk before he lowers his head and swallows his cock into his throat again and again. All Harry can do is gasp as he tries not to thrust up into the wet heat of Zayn’s throat. Zayn drags his tongue along a vein and Harry’s head hits the headboard so hard that he sees stars.

Zayn gives his cock a last affectionate lick as he comes up and seats himself in Harry’s lap. Harry sits up and grabs Zayn’s jaw, kissing him hungrily and only stopping so that they have a moment to pull each other’s shirts over their heads. Harry wraps an arm around Zayn’s back and pulls him closer as Zayn’s fingers trace patterns over the tattoos on Harry’s arm. One of the things that Harry loves about Zayn is that he can kiss for longer than anyone. Harry’s pretty sure that Perrie taught him that, as he’s always walking in on them snogging in the kitchen, wrapped around each other with their arms inside each other’s jumpers.

They’re always so completely absorbed by each other and nothing else that Harry sometimes feels something awkward inside his chest. Louis sometimes kisses him for a long time, but he always pulls away before Harry wants to let go of him, turning Harry over suddenly and awkwardly as though he’d almost forgotten that he was meant to be doing something else.

Harry deepens the kiss and tries to forget about everything except for the softness of Zayn’s lips under his and the softer rush of air as Zayn breathes through his nose so that they never have to stop. Zayn moans and pulls gently at his curls, coaxing Harry’s head away just far enough that he can look at his eyes. Harry can still taste the saccharine cherry flavour on Zayn’s breath as Zayn strokes him and asks “Do you want me to ride that?”

Harry falls back onto the bed and stares up at Zayn’s eyes with parted lips. He hopes that the dizzying want he’s feeling shows in his eyes, as Harry doesn’t think that he can talk. The thought of getting his cock inside Zayn always gets him so hard that it aches. Harry doesn’t get this anywhere else. He feels like it would be rude to ask to put it there with girls, and Louis and Liam haven’t offered. Harry never asks. They never leave him anything less than sticky and wrecked, and that’s perfect, as far as Harry’s concerned.

Sometimes he touches himself and thinks about what it would be like with Louis. Harry always wonders what Louis would feel like inside and whether he’d wrap his legs around his waist, wandering around flushed and guilty afterwards because it gets him off that fast it’s like he’s fifteen again.

Zayn gets one condom off and another on with a casual ability with his hands that would make Harry jealous if he wasn’t busy staring at the flushed head of Zayn’s cock as he takes off his jeans. Harry moans as the condoms come off and on, Zayn’s fingers rubbing at his sensitive cock. He’s is so absorbed by the gorgeousness of Zayn’s frame on top of him that he’s already struggling to keep his hips steady as Zayn stretches across his chest to get the lubricant from the bedside table. The places above his collarbones hollow out, damp and golden as he leans over Harry, and Harry wraps a hand around his throat and comes up to taste them. Zayn groans and entwines his slicked hand with Harry’s, getting their fingers all slick as they feel the heat of each other’s skin.

Zayn strokes Harry’s cock as he takes his fingers inside. A sound comes of Zayn’s throat as Harry’s knuckles slide inside him that gets a thousand butterflies going in Harry’s stomach and leaves his cock throbbing in Zayn’s hand. Zayn’s back arches like a gymnast as he rides Harry’s fingers, the lean muscles in his stomach stretching prettily as he twists his hips, and Harry can’t get over how lucky he is to get underneath him. He bites his lip and grabs onto Zayn’s thighs to keep still as Zayn finally slides down on his cock. Harry’s given up on trying to control his breathing as Zayn starts to move, staring at Zayn’s face as he feels his chest heaving.

Zayn rubs his fingers along the rose tattooed on Harry’s arm like it’s the most fascinating thing he’s ever seen as his hips roll forward on Harry’s cock. His jaw clenches as his arse clenches around Harry, and Harry hisses as Zayn’s fingernails dig into the anatomical heart inked on his upper arm.

“Fuck yeah,” Harry breathes, and Zayn’s nails dig harder as he smirks.

“You kiss your mother with that mouth, Harry?” Zayn asks as he grinds on Harry’s cock.

“I’ve kissed your mother with that mouth,” Harry goads, and Zayn smacks his thigh hard. He leans over Harry and pulls his hair as he thrusts two fingers inside Harry’s lips.

“Chatty today, aren’t you?” Zayn asks as he thrusts his fingers in and out of Harry’s mouth. Harry sucks, closing around them and lapping at them with his tongue as he looks up at Zayn’s dark eyes. Harry likes that: when people play with his mouth until he gets sore. Liam had worked it out first, putting three fingers along with his cock inside Harry’s mouth and whispering the dirtiest things Harry had ever heard as he watched how wide Harry’s jaw could stretch. Louis likes to suck and bite his lips until they’re all puffy and sensitive before Harry goes down on him, leaving Harry whining at the feeling of Louis’s cock sliding all over them.

Zayn likes to coax him between his thighs after Liam’s finished with him, rubbing his thumb across his lower lip and his jaw until Harry parts his already swollen lips for him.

Zayn had once whispered in his ear that coming in his mouth was always better when Harry had to try so _hard_ for it. Harry thinks that Zayn has other reasons for wanting his cock in Harry’s mouth while the smell of Liam’s aftershave is still clinging to Harry’s hair.

Zayn pulls his fingers out and sucks on them, smearing Harry’s spit on his lips before he wipes them on Harry’s chest. He pulls almost all the way off Harry’s cock and then slides down again, hips jutting out as he leans back and starts to stroke his cock, perspiration almost glittering on the wings on his chest. Any time Harry even tries to think about anything _tighter_ around him than Zayn he almost blacks out. Harry’s pulse is racing so fast that he feels light-headed as he watches Zayn pumping his cock. Zayn swipes his thumb over the head and then lowers his eyelashes and sucks it just inside his mouth as he looks at Harry.

“You like that, don’t you?” Zayn grins, and Harry puts his hands flat against Zayn’s stomach, tilts his head back on the pillow and whines. His cock is so sensitive that Harry feels every inch as Zayn works himself up and down on it with his hips.

“You’re so tight I think I’m going to faint,” Harry mumbles, flushing as he tries not to embarrass himself and come. Zayn laughs and leans down close, running his fingers over Harry’s ribs, eyelashes against Harry’s throat as he places a wet kiss on Harry’s collar bone and says, “Why haven’t you come in my tight arse then?”

Harry’s nails scrape helplessly down Zayn’s back as he comes, arching off the bed so high that Zayn’s mouth falls open and his cock pulses against his stomach as Harry pushes all the way inside. He holds tightly onto Harry’s shoulders until his hips come down, then he rolls his hips in tiny circles, milking the last of Harry’s orgasm out of him. Harry covers his face with his arm.

“That’s not fair,” he mumbles into his forearm, and Zayn licks at his neck affectionately, grinning against Harry’s throat.

“Aaaw, Harry.” Zayn ties the condom and tosses it into the bin, smirking as the contact makes Harry twitch. “Perrie’s going to wonder how we got three condoms into that bin in half an hour.”

Harry’s eyes widen as Zayn’s fingers come down and rub along his perineum. Zayn bites his lower lip and looks up at Harry with his dark eyes flashing.

“I wouldn’t want you to get bored.”

Harry groans as Zayn kisses him, his fingers rubbing persistently along the sensitive skin. Zayn lies on top of him, making Harry take his weight as they kiss, wet and lazy at first, Zayn’s hand stroking Harry’s hair. Harry likes the weight of Zayn on his chest, almost holding him down as he feels fingers along the sensitive crease of his thigh. Harry’s so overstimulated that he’s shivering as he touches Zayn’s cock, already wanting him again even though he’s worried it’ll hurt if he gets hard. 

Zayn touches him all over as he thrusts his tongue inside Harry’s mouth. He rubs the line of Harry’s pelvic muscle until Harry arches up, his breathing all messed up and his nerves singing into Zayn’s hands. Harry hisses as Zayn pinches the inside of his thigh and struggles under Zayn’s chest, deliberately biting down hard on Zayn’s lower lip. Zayn’s lip is swollen as he comes off Harry’s mouth with heavy lashes and a pretty, glazed smile that makes Harry moan. Zayn drags his tongue in a hot, wet streak over the butterfly on Harry’s stomach as he twists his nipple hard. His hands frame Harry’s ribcage, holding his chest as he gets Harry’s nipple inside his lips and drags his tongue around it over and over until Harry caves in.

“Come on, put it inside,” Harry murmurs, flushing as Zayn leans back and looks at the place between his thighs like it’s _for_ that. His cock is already hardening, aching slightly as he watches Zayn slick his fingers until they’re shining and almost dripping onto Harry’s thighs. Harry feels faint as Zayn pushes his thighs up and apart as far as they’ll go, tracing his fingertips over the sensitive skin behind Harry’s knees. The insides of Harry’s thighs tremble as they strain and Zayn’s breath rushes sweet across his throat as Zayn leans forward so that their eyelashes touch as they kiss.

“Your turn,” Zayn whispers. Harry cries out, cursing as Zayn thrusts two fingers hard inside him all at once. Harry tosses his head on the pillow, writhing as Zayn gets a third finger inside him. Zayn always gets when Harry wants it a tiny bit rough, when he wants something to focus on outside of the thoughts falling all over the place inside his head. Harry sometimes comes to Zayn when Louis gives him that annoyed look and goes all quiet: when he tosses agitatedly in his bunk after they’ve fucked, ‘accidentally’ kneeing Harry in the side until Harry gets the message that Louis wants him to sleep in his own bunk and leaves. Zayn always knows how much to hurt and where to put his arms afterwards.

Sometimes, when Louis touches him, Harry feels like the ink all over him comes alive. The hearts beat, the letters rearrange themselves, the butterfly flaps its wet wings like it’s just come out of a cocoon. It isn’t like that with anyone else. But Zayn never touches him like he’s afraid of Harry’s skin.

Harry looks away from Zayn when Zayn gets a fistful of his hair and tilts Harry’s head back on the pillow as he aligns his cock, flushing because doesn’t want his head to be with Louis when he’s with anyone else, because he’s getting _worse_ and he doesn’t know what’s wrong with him. Harry’s eyes snap back to Zayn’s as the tip of Zayn’s cock pushes inside his body. Zayn holds his gaze, his hazel eyes damp and beautiful on Harry’s, and they’re both gasping as he thrusts inside, eyes locked and wild.

Harry feels so exposed like this. He knows they all like him like this, vulnerable and trying and failing to stop his eyes from getting wide and desperate as Liam fucks him in front of the mirror and makes him watch his own face, or Louis puts his fingers inside him while he’s still asleep, leaving Harry disoriented and whining in pleasure as his dreams about Louis blur with Louis’s cock slick inside his arse. He tries to show them what they want and takes the teasing about why he’s always so sleepy and muddled, falling asleep in their laps as an intoxicating soreness spreads through his body.

The sheets are getting damp underneath him as Zayn fucks him hard. It stretches and hurts and feels really fucking sweet and _good_ as Zayn thrusts deep inside his arse. The friction is excruciating and slick and perfect and the tight fist in his hair is hurting in that way that always makes Harry shiver and lean into it, and it’s like Harry can feel his sweat _dripping_ from his pores. Harry’s fists are clenching and unclenching helplessly on the pillow as he struggles with all the sensations, and Zayn joins their hands and makes soothing sounds.

“God, your hair is fucking _wet_ , Harry,” Zayn murmurs as he takes his damp fingers out of Harry’s curls and rubs them along Harry’s thigh. Zayn kisses him and Harry moans into his mouth so loudly that he almost doesn’t hear the front door slamming shut.

“Hi!” Perrie calls out downstairs to no one in particular.

Harry has never seen Zayn move so fast in his life.

“Oh my God. Oh my God, no,” he’s saying as he reverses rapidly off the bed, trying to get rid of the condom and stagger into his jeans at the same time. Harry’s limbs feels heavy and slow, still thick with pleasure and complaining at the loss of Zayn’s cock inside him as he tries to sit up.

“Zayn, are you alright?”

“We have to barricade the door,” Zayn replies, trying to push a large desk with his shoulder as he attempts to force his erection inside his tight pants.

“Perrie knows about us…” Harry reminds him, feeling totally confused as he watches Zayn really put his back into trying to get a piece of furniture seven times the size of him from the wall to the door and failing to move it five inches. “I’ve heard her on the phone. Also that door locks.”

“Perrie can pick a lock faster than anyone I know!”

“What?”

“Are you fucking?” Perrie’s voice sounds frighteningly intrigued as her footsteps head up the stairs. Harry wonders how many people Zayn knows who can reliably pick locks.

“Fuck, Harry, _please_ , help us out!”

Zayn looks anxious and worried and Harry drags his limbs up from the bed and slams his weight into the desk. They get it in front of the door just as Perrie tries the handle.

“Oh, _come on_ ,” Perrie whines.

“Babe, you can’t come in here, Harry’s not dressed,” Zayn tells her, bracing himself against the desk and looking like the fear of God’s really been put into him.

“I’ve seen Harry undressed loads of times,” Perrie informs him brightly. “Like, remember that time when I went to get a glass of milk and he was in the kitchen eating cornflakes with no pants?”

Harry flushes and makes a mental note to put on pants as well as a top next time he wants cornflakes. He’s never had a more awkward five minutes of conversation holding a bowl of cornflakes in front of his junk. 

“Perrie, we were _having sex_ ,” Zayn says, flushing at the words like he wasn’t just swallowing a cock fifteen minutes ago.

“And I wanna watch!” Harry can hear Perrie bouncing up and down on her heels. “Come oonnn, I’ll be _really_ quiet, I promise.”

“I’m not ready for you to watch, babe,” Zayn says, closing his eyes as the flush creeps over his torso. “Like, what if it’s not as hot as what you think it’s like? I don’t want you to be disappointed.”

Perrie scoffs but her voice is affectionate.

“You’re a proper idiot, love. Someone’s clearly not looked in a mirror lately. Disappointed? More like in a coma from too many orgasms.”

“Hi Perrie,” Harry says, as now feels like as good a time as any.

“Hey Harry! I’ve got you a present! I’ll leave it on your bed, yeah?”

“You’re the best, Perrie.”

“Aaaw, you’re a sweetheart, Harry. _Anyway_ ,” Perrie says, turning her attention back to her boyfriend, “suit yourself. I’ll be having a wank with my favourite toys and _you’re_ not allowed to watch.”

Harry listens to her walk down the corridor humming the tune of ‘Push It’ to herself. As always, Harry is as amazed by Perrie as he is puzzled.

“She won’t say which ones are her favourites though,” Zayn is muttering, “Like, so I don’t know what to get her more of.”

Harry looks at Zayn’s flushed, serious face and tries to hide his grin.

“What?” Zayn asks.

“You’ll fuck me up the arse while Niall is watching _Sixteen Candles_ two metres away but you’re scared of doing it in front of your girlfriend.” Harry starts singing ‘Can You Feel the Love Tonight’ and Zayn whacks him.

“Oh my God, shut the fuck up.”

Harry chuckles but then he takes in Zayn’s flushed face, gorgeous and open like it always is when he talks about Perrie, and Harry’s a bit taken aback by how beautiful that looks.

“I think it’s cool. That you love her like that,” he says quietly.

“It is pretty cool, yeah.” Zayn’s face softens and Harry knows that Zayn is looking right inside his head. Harry looks down and flushes, and waits. “He looks at you a lot, Harry,” is what Zayn says in the end, and Harry lets the air rush out of his chest. He hadn’t realised that he was holding his breath.

*

Harry goes into town on Saturday because Perrie and Zayn are making him lonely. It’s not like they’re ignoring him or anything; Perrie always bounces over to him when he catches her eye, demanding that he dance with her because Zayn never does, and Harry’s pretty sure that he knows the moves to ‘Drop It Like It’s Hot’ better than most people now. For a petite woman, Perrie definitely has a frighteningly authoritative way of telling you to pop it like it’s hot. It’s just that they’re so lost in the novelty of being able to spend time with each other for once that it’s like they sometimes forget Harry’s here.

Harry’s communication with other people this week has mostly consisted of texts from Lou Teasdale saying things like ‘Wear a bolero. Do it for the Vine.’ Louis has Skyped him once, but he was holding Ernest on his lap the whole time and Louis is always a bit distracted when toddlers are around. Harry finds it endearing, but he felt lonely watching Louis offer Ernest his finger to hold onto with his little hands, talking to him softly as though he’d forgotten Harry was around. Louis’s blue eyes were far away when he was looking at Harry anyway. Harry had really been hoping that Louis wasn’t only calling because he was feeling guilty about ignoring all of Harry’s texts for four days. Harry feels kind of crushed.

Harry reminds himself that Louis probably has a lot going on. He reminds himself that Louis doesn’t always need Harry _there_ , in his hometown, holding his jacket and calling his name from the sidelines, watching as he laughs and runs and twirls around after he kicks a goal. Louis doesn’t always need Harry’s chest swelling with pride as Louis jogs over to him, breathless and wide-eyed and more full of life than ever as he throws his arms around Harry’s shoulders. Louis’s alright on his own.

And Harry’s happy to be there when he’s allowed, to walk home with Louis in the dark and watch Louis’s eyes light up like blue fairy lights when Harry brings him a hot chocolate in the middle of the night. Harry reminds himself that he’s alright on his own as well, that he likes wrapping a scarf around his hair and dancing around his room to the Rolling Stones until he’s laughing at nothing at all. As he walks through the city he remembers that time that Mick Jagger tweeted him, Harry Styles from Holmes Chapel, and his chest soars all over again. He smiles shyly at a stranger who swallows and breaks his stride as Harry walks past. Harry knows he’s going to be okay. 

He buys a new pair of Chelsea boots and texts Cara Delevingne until he’s persuaded her that he’s allowed to come over and show her them. She grunts when he tries on the boots in her living room, which is approval in Cara-talk. She pushes him onto the sofa, makes herself comfortable on his lap and starts eating crisps and braiding his hair. She lets him fuck her, because Cara likes sex, but she refuses to take off her oversized t-shirt while they’re doing it, or to stop eating crisps and braiding his hair, because she’s Cara. When they’re lying on the sofa watching SpongeBob afterwards she turns to Harry and gives him an appraising look.

“You’re gay,” she tells him matter-of-factly.

“I’m what?”

“ _Gay_ , as in ‘loves the cock’.”

“I just shagged you,” Harry points out, feeling a little slighted.

“You shagged me, but you look at Louis Tomlinson like you want him to put his babies in you, and then you want to like, build a tree fort for them or something.”

“I do not want him to put his babies in me and build a tree fort for them or something,” Harry mutters, blushing furiously.

Cara pats him on the head.

“It’s alright, I think I’m gay too.”

“You just shagged _me_ ,” Harry reminds her, and Cara snorts through a mouthful of crisps.

“I thought that was like, a British rite of passage,” she says, and Harry swats at her thigh. “And you look like a really slutty angel so that doesn’t count.”

“Cara, I don’t think you can just _be gay_ because you want to.”

Cara looks indignant.

“Fuck off, I’m serious! I can be _so_ gay. I just haven’t met the right girl to be gay _with_ yet.” Cara actually does look serious, so Harry nuzzles into her chest and puts her hand in his hair by way of apology. Cara relents and starts fixing the loose plaits that got mussed up when they fucked.

“You thought you were straight until you met him, huh?”

And it’s okay, that Cara’s asking that, because it’s _her_. Cara always laughs loudly like she doesn’t care what anyone thinks about her and guards her friends fiercely if anyone’s rude about them. Harry feels relaxed, here with her on her sofa. Harry sometimes thinks he would’ve fallen for her if there wasn’t something about Louis’s whispery, broken voice when they were alone at night that always held him back.

“Yeah, I thought that,” he says softly, and right here, naked and wrapped in the arms of someone he trusts, it doesn’t all feel that complicated.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hello 
> 
> [Sugarhill Park @ Tumblr](https://sugarhillpark.tumblr.com/)


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Angsty drunk Larrie smut time. Much love to anyone who's commented or left kudos so far, I live for that sweet sweet validation. 👌😊

  
Louis is drunk. They’re all drunk, but Louis is winning, or that’s what he keeps announcing loudly to all of them. Paul definitely isn’t drunk, as he periodically walks into their trailer and lifts Louis down from each high surface that he’s taken it upon himself to climb on top of while Louis yells obscenities at him.

“Harryyyyy,” Louis says, his breath sweet as he drapes his arms around Harry’s shoulders from behind, stretching up on his toes and giggling into Harry’s throat. And Harry’s so overwhelmed with relief that Louis is being _normal_ around him, is being the Louis that he understands, that he feels _sick_.

They’d only been apart for just over a week, but they’d all voted in favour of Louis’s motion to get drunk in honour of their first night back together. Liam is taking the opportunity to interrogate Niall about his impervious heterosexuality in the face of recent events.

“It’s not awful with blokes like you think,” Liam is telling him, with an arm draped drunkenly over Niall’s shoulder, “It’s just different.”

Niall narrows his eyes at Liam over the caramel fudge sundae he’s nursing.

“That’s what you told me about getting up at 5am and working out instead of sleeping like a _normal_ person. Don’t _think_ I’ve forgiven you for that, you great twat.”

“But Harry’s got a mouth like-”

Niall clamps a hand over Liam’s mouth as Liam gestures vigorously.

“If you ever talk to me about Harry’s mouth again I swear to God I will make you wish you were hungover on a call with Simon after one of your Twitter rants.”

“What’s wrong with my mouth?” Harry asks, slurring a little and flushing happily as Louis pushes his face into his neck.

“I miss the times when it was just for eating pussy and bananas,” Niall says with far-away, nostalgic look in his eyes.

“You did make out with Wiz Khalifa that one time,” Zayn says, and Niall nods in affirmation.

“Yup,” Niall says, looking neither remotely embarrassed nor convinced that making out with Wiz Khalifa was gay. “I could go another round. I gave him my number. I thought we could hang out. He hasn’t called me though.” Niall actually looks slightly put out.

Harry smiles to himself as he watches Liam’s arm snake around Zayn’s waist and Zayn’s eyelashes flutter as he leans into it.

“You smell good,” Louis is murmuring into his throat, and Harry feels warm and shy and like he’s where he belongs as he whispers back, “You smell the best.”

“I think I just threw up in my mouth a bit,” Niall says, looking more fondly exasperated than anything else as he looks at Louis and Harry. Harry grins and blows him a kiss.

“Fuck off, Niall,” Louis says, “We don’t need you anyway. We’ll start a new band called ‘Louis Tomlinson and the Pretty One’.”

“Heyyyy,” Harry says, “I have talents.”

“I will use literally all of your fucking talents,” Louis whispers into his ear, and Harry gets too caught up by the butterflies in his stomach to protest at all. He doesn’t even think that he wants to. He leans back into Louis, flushed and drunk on Louis’s weight against his spine, and Louis could use him tonight, if he wanted to. Harry would take it, for tonight.

Harry tries to stay a few drinks behind Louis as they all get more and more drunk. He doesn’t want to do the wrong thing and fuck it all up again. It’s hard not to rest his head in Louis’s lap when Louis collapses on the sofa and pulls Harry down beside him. Louis’s blue eyes are wide and bright and Harry never wants to stop looking at them as Louis sings the lyrics to some song that only Louis understands when he’s quiet and drunk and beautiful like this.

Zayn and Liam have stopped wrestling over some pretend, drunken pretext, and they’re lying on the carpet with their legs entwined, watching the wall as Zayn slowly turns his glass so that it scatters light all over its surface. Niall has fallen asleep curled up on the two-seater. He has a small smear of caramel fudge above his lip. Harry wants to get up and look for a blanket for him, but Louis’s fingers on his thigh are holding him where he is like a heavy weight.

Louis leans over and pushes his fingers into Harry’s hair. Harry closes his eyes and tries to focus on Louis’s fingers. It feels a little like he’s drowning.

“I want to show you something,” Louis is telling him, and Harry doesn’t open his eyes.

“Show me.”

“Follow me.”

Louis is leading him by the hand, and Harry hears Liam calling out to them, but it’s like his voice is only coming from far away, and Harry follows Louis out of the trailer. When they reach a wire fence near the last of the trailers, Louis pushes him against it.

“Did you want to show me the fence?” Harry asks, because he knows they’re not really supposed to be wandering around here, so late at night.

“You’re hysterically funny, has anyone ever told you that?” Louis says, and Louis is too close, so close that Harry’s heart starts racing in his chest. It’s _really hard_ to pull back when Louis kisses him. It’s so hard that Harry’s chest really _hurts_ , and he wants to shake and laugh at the same time because he’s drunk and he doesn’t really understand what’s happening to him.

He just suddenly knows that he never wants this again if Louis’s going to walk away from him at the airport again without looking back, if Louis won’t want him near his family or want to fall asleep on his chest when they’re in his bed watching a movie, with his hair covering his eyes and his breath slow and steady on Harry’s throat. He doesn’t want that taken away over just skin. But he wants to touch Louis more than he’s ever wanted to touch anyone.

“Louis, I don’t think you really want to-”

“Tell me more about what I do and don’t want, I fucking love it when people do that,” Louis snaps, but he doesn’t step back.

“Last time-” Harry tries, and his voice sounds small as Louis presses his body against him.

“Last time you were _really_ beautiful,” Louis murmurs, and Harry is really shaking now. “You’re already getting hard,” Louis whispers in awe, and then he must feel the tremors all over Harry’s body, because he steps away. He’s almost a metre away from Harry now, looking tiny in the darkness, and Harry’s amazed by how quickly the cold air rushes over all the places that Louis was covering. His nipples get hard and sensitive and Harry knows that Louis can probably see them through the thin fabric of his shirt. Harry wonders what he looks like and shivers.

“What’s wrong?” Louis asks. “Don’t you want…is it not alright with…?” Louis’s face looks insecure for once, and Harry’s never heard him try to get words to form and stumble. That’s what Harry’s so good at. And Harry hears the pieces of Louis’s thoughts, hears ‘ _Don’t you want me anymore?_ ’ and ‘ _Is it not alright with me? Is it only for anyone else who wants you?_ ’, and Harry suddenly feels awful about more than one thing.

“I always want it with you,” Harry says, and when Louis’s mouth closes on his, warmth melts over Harry like he’s just come.

He follows Louis blindly toward the venue, hovering over him as he fumbles with a gate.

“It’s locked,” Harry tells him, and Louis rolls his eyes.

“Wow, can’t get anything past you. I _might’ve_ swiped some keys from Paul’s pocket when he was carrying me earlier. I’m thinking they might open something around here. Aha!” Louis says as the gate opens.“Louis Tomlinson wins again, Paul.” Harry looks at him in disbelief.

“You _stole_ from _Paul_.”

“But Harry, I wanted to be alone with you,” Louis drawls, with pretty, mocking eyes, and Harry’s stomach flutters anyway.

“You’re an idiot,” he mutters as they slip through the gate, and Louis grins at him through the darkness.

“Not the one who gets confused by his own feet here.” And then they’re making out again, stumbling through the dark halls of the venue, pushing each other against the walls and laughing and not caring as their bodies set off lights, kissing more and more until they’re breathless. Louis pushes open the door to their dressing room and walks inside, holding onto Harry’s wrist. Louis’s fingers are suddenly tight, and when he turns to Harry he’s biting his lip like he’s nervous, so Harry leans into him.

“Did you bring me here to fuck me?” he whispers. “Where do you want it?”

Louis lowers his eyelashes and doesn’t meet Harry’s eyes.

“I thought you could fuck me.”

“I-” Harry swallows, overwhelmed for a moment by the arousal that rushes uncontrollably over his body. “We haven’t done that before.”

“No shit, Sherlock, I figured I would’ve remembered it.”

“What if you don’t like it?”

Louis rolls his eyes.

“Then I’ll say ‘Wow, this is really pretty awful’ while you’re fucking me.”

“I don’t even know if I’m good,” Harry stumbles, “I’ve only ever, with Zayn, and I-”

“Do you want to talk about fucking other guys tonight, or do you want to fuck me up the arse?” Louis snaps. “Completely up to you.”

Harry tries to speak and ends up shrugging helplessly as he looks at his shoes.

“I just want you.”

Louis’s face is softer when Harry looks up.

“Hey.” Louis pulls off his top and puts Harry’s hands underneath his waist. “If you always want it with me, then do it with me,” he whispers. “Come on, do it to me like you want to.”

Louis’s skin feels fucking amazing, and Harry bites his lip.

“I just don’t want you to feel like you’re obligated or anything,” Harry mumbles, trying to control the want that’s thrumming in his chest.

“Why would I feel fucking obligated? I wouldn’t be offering if I didn’t _want_ it, you twat.”

Something in Harry crumbles as he laughs through all his nerves.

“You always say the sweetest things,” he says, and Louis gives him a mock-affronted look.

“What, now I’m not sweet enough for you? I’ll have you know, I am one of the sweetest people that you’ve ever met.”

Harry laughs again and Louis walks over to sound system in the corner and rifles through the mix CDs Harry’s left there. Louis frowns as he looks at scribbled handwriting in thick marker and then shrugs and puts one in. The 1975’s ‘Robbers’ comes on and Louis turns to Harry with a smirk on his lips.

“Look at that, _sweet_ , I got you music. You like this shit, don’t you?”

Harry walks over to Louis and backs him into the make-up table until Louis has to lean back.

“Yeah, I like that shit,” Harry says, and he grabs Louis’s arse with both hands and kisses him. Louis moans into his mouth as Harry kneads his arse and tugs at Harry’s hair. Harry flushes as Louis gets rougher, with his mouth and his hands, and Louis doesn’t complain when Harry lifts him back onto the table, just wraps his legs around Harry and fumbles with Harry’s belt, his fingers drunk and more desperate than usual, and yeah, Harry thinks, _sweet_.

“Do you jerk off listening to that?” Louis gasps out, tossing his head in the direction of the music player, always trying to have the last word, and Harry crawls over him and licks the inside of his mouth.

“Thinking about you,” Harry says, not caring that it’s true as he presses his cock against Louis through their jeans, just caring that Louis’s warm and ready for this underneath him.

“Oh really?” Louis asks, undoing the fly on Harry’s jeans.

“Like this,” Harry murmurs, pulling Louis’s hand down onto his cock and rubbing into it, hips coming forward almost of their own accord.

Louis reaches up to touch Harry’s face as the lyrics ‘ _You’ve got a pretty kind of dirty face_ ’ come out of the speakers and they look at each other for a moment. Harry hopes his smile isn’t as nervous as he feels, hopes that he looks ‘pretty’, or good, or _something_ , until Louis says “Come on, come here” and pulls him down.

Harry is moaning over and over, crushed against Louis’s chest as he kisses him and raises Louis’s hips to drag his jeans down around his thighs. Harry struggles to pull his own t-shirt over his head and almost collapses on Louis because he doesn’t want to stop kissing him. Louis arches his spine as he kicks off his jeans, and Harry feels Louis’s pulse in his stomach as their sweaty skin presses together. Harry sucks Louis’s neck, damp under his hair, and doesn’t want to let go as another singer’s voice throbs over them.

‘ _Be a riot, ’cause I know you._ ’

Louis’s hands come down to his lower back and knead the skin there. Harry’s heartbeat is too fast as he takes a condom and a small packet of lubricant out of his jeans. His hands just won’t work the way he wants, and he lets his hair fall over his eyes, feeling like a hopeless mess until Louis gets a fist in his hair again, pulling it out of his eyes and anchoring him like somehow Louis always does.

“How do you want…?” he asks, flushing as Louis looks up at him with heavy-lidded eyes.

“Oh,” Louis falters. The song’s ended and the slow, aching vocals of that version of ‘Sex’ that Harry loves are filling up the room. Louis flushes and looks awkwardly away from Harry’s eyes. “Should I turn over?”

“I don’t want you to,” Harry blurts out, and Louis’s eyes fly back to his, wide and almost shocked. Harry wants to bang his head on the table. “Unless you want to, then I-”

“Would you _shut up_ and put your fingers in me? I’m alright like this.”

Harry feels like his whole body is flushed as he tears open the packet and wets his fingers.

“We don’t have tonnes of lube so if it’s hurting we don’t need to-”

Louis comes up off the table so suddenly that Harry has to grip onto his arm so that he isn’t thrown backwards.

“Why won’t you fucking let me try it for you?” Louis is drunk and something inside his eyes looks _bruised_ , and Harry holds tightly onto his arm and stares into them because he’s so shocked that he can’t look away. “Don’t try to get out of it when you fucking want it because you think I’m too fucking fragile for you. I had a fucking wet dream about _you_. I woke up with cum all over me because of how _you_ look when I fuck you. So yeah, it might fucking hurt a bit, but I _want_ it, alright? I want to feel it tomorrow night while I’m listening to you _fuck_ Liam, is that what you need me to tell you? What do you need? ‘Fuck me until it hurts’? ‘Fuck me until-”

Harry snaps out of his stupor and kisses Louis hard. And _God_ , he wants to say _a lot_ to Louis as the pulse in Louis’s arm where he’s grabbing it throbs along with Harry’s cock. The words won’t come out, so he just pushes at Louis’s chest until Louis gives in and falls back onto the table. Harry coaxes Louis to tilt his hips up and slowly pushes his legs backwards.

“I don’t need anything,” Harry murmurs, hoping the words are enough as he puts a finger inside Louis for the first time. Louis’s breath hitches as he puts another finger inside and Harry moans at the feeling of Louis’s breath on his lips and _Louis_ tight around his fingers. “God, you’re so pretty, Lou.”

“Don’t call me pretty,” Louis says, but there are tears in his eyes as Harry stretches his fingers. Louis is breathing in tiny hiccups, lips parted like they won’t close for him if he tries, and Harry leans down and licks his neck.

“You’re doing-”

“If you tell me I’m doing fine, I will fucking choke you. Now fuck me.” Louis spreads his legs further, trying to hide his wince at the stretch, and Harry flushes, feeling self-conscious about how much smaller Louis’s body is than his. He wonders what Louis sees in him, all huge hands and clumsy, always falling limbs. And Harry had meant to say ‘so good’, ‘ _You’re doing so good, Lou_ ’, but he swallows it and nods.

He feels awkward as he pushes himself up from the table onto the floor to get his jeans all the way off. Louis looks more beautiful than anything that Harry can remember, and he feels like he’s gotten too sensitive just looking at him. He shudders as he puts the condom on and strokes himself with his wet hand. He has to close his eyes against the sensation for a moment before he climbs on top of Louis, thrusting his fingers inside him one last time.

Harry tries to push in slowly, tries to only push his cock just past the tightest part of Louis’s body, but Louis just wraps his legs tightly around Harry’s waist and tilts his hips up, pulling him inside. Harry swears and shudders as he tries to focus on Louis’s eyes. They’re blown wide with lust and distress, and Harry just bites his lip and tries to push Louis’s hair away from his eyes over and over again. Louis is making an ‘Uuhh’ noise that sends shivers through Harry’s body. It makes a piece of him want to fuck Louis hard, but he forces himself to keep still.

Harry can tell from Louis’s eyes that he’s feeling pain, and another part of him only wants to pull away and check that Louis’s alright. He wants to yell at Louis for always trying to be _tough_ at stupid times and he wants to kiss his forehead and his eyelids and his chest. He doesn’t pull away, or yell, or kiss Louis anywhere, because he’s too afraid that Louis will turn away from him, light up a cigarette and say that this was a stupid idea anyway.

Sometimes Harry remembers the first time that Louis fucked him. He remembers waking up to the sensation of Louis on top of him, waking up to Louis’s smell, and how Louis’s mouth tasted when they kissed, _really_ kissed, for the first time. He remembers how it felt to have Louis’s thighs sliding against his and Louis’s cock thrusting inside him, melting away all the fantasies and replacing them with something that made pleasure and warmth soak through his body until he was gasping. He remembers trying to curl up on his side afterwards with his back against Louis’s chest, because when they’d shared a bed before Louis had always liked being the big spoon, even though he was smaller, and Harry had never cared.

And Harry remembers Louis leaving the bunk ten seconds later. He’d sat with his arms wrapped around his knees in his bunk by a gap in the curtains, just watching Louis smoke cigarette after cigarette outside, leaning against the side of the bus and illuminated by the security lights. Harry had felt lonely and hypnotised as he watched Louis’s far-away eyes and the restless pull of his lips. He’d found his fingers touching the glass as Louis coughed, because Louis never smoked that much, and he looked so cold, in just soft sleep pants and a threadbare t-shirt. Something had clenched inside Harry’s chest as he wondered why Louis would rather be coughing on smoke, out in the cold, than pressed against his hot skin.

Harry swallows and looks down at Louis, running his palm along Louis’s sweaty chest as he watches its rapid rise and fall. He thinks about how much he’d wanted to feel Louis’s heartbeat against his back in the bed where they’d fucked, and thrusts inside him, just an inch, just trying to work out how to _take_ what he wants for once. Louis’s thighs tighten around him and Harry exhales and leans forward.

“I’m gonna fuck you now,” he murmurs, and Louis moans as his fingers rub at Harry’s hips, coaxing, but Harry doesn’t give in yet. “Tell me you want this as much as I do.” And it’s _all_ , all he wants: for Louis to admit that just once.

“How would I fucking know how much you want it?” Louis breathes, and Harry looks right into his eyes, feeling drunk and brave and vulnerable.

“You know.” Harry feels like heat is pouring over him as Louis lets his head fall back on the table and stares up at his face. Louis cants his hips up and licks his lips as he swallows, slowly, deliberately, and Harry braces himself hard on his arms to stop himself from thrusting as his cock throbs inside Louis. Louis closes his eyes and opens them slowly. They’re wet and his voice is a hoarse whisper when he finally talks.

“More. I want it _more_.”

Harry laughs, low and sore in his throat as he starts to thrust, because he thinks that there’s no one who wouldn’t crumple and fall apart if they wanted anything more than Harry’s wanted Louis for _four years_. He tries to thrust slowly, tries to find a rhythm that won’t make him come as fast as he feels like he’s going to. Louis feels so good inside that pleasure is already crawling up Harry’s spine, and he bites his lip as he fights against the building sensation. Louis’s head is tilted back but he’s still looking into Harry’s eyes. His eyelashes are leaving wet marks on his skin as he slowly blinks and his chest swells as he tries to breathe steadily, but Louis doesn’t look away.

Harry soaks in the eye contact, because it _never_ lasts this long with Louis. He changes the angle of his hips, trying to find that spot inside that feels good, and Harry doesn’t really know what he’s doing, because Zayn usually just grabs him until he gets his cock where he wants it and then rides. Louis’s legs are wrapped tightly around Harry’s waist and he’s beginning to lift his hips a little, biting his lip from the pressure when he does. Louis’s face is nervous and sweetly determined as he tries to hide the fact that the friction is hurting, is almost too much, and Harry’s chest aches as he leans forward and kisses him.

He remembers the first time that Liam fucked him with just a packet of lube, locked in a dark, tiny backroom in the V.I.P area of some nightclub, because Perrie and Zayn had been making out all night, and Liam wanted it _now._ Liam’s cock had felt huge inside him, the friction agonising and amazing, pushing Harry into a teary, oversensitised mess, cock-leaking as he gripped onto Liam’s shoulders. He doesn’t have Liam’s strong shoulders and soothing words, so he just tries angle after awkward angle, desperately trying to get Louis to feel what he feels when Louis fucks him, hoping even more desperately that Louis will ever want this again.

And Harry _knows_ when he’s hit that bundle of nerves inside him, because Louis chokes on air and turns away. Harry’s eyes smart as Louis stares fixedly at the wall and he reaches out and grabs his chin, turning Louis’s head so he has to face him. Louis’s eyes are as challenging as ever as he looks up at him, like he doesn’t care that they’re practically leaking with tears.

“Look at me, _please_.” Harry’s voice is a husky, ruined whisper, and he knows _exactly_ how his face must look from all those times in front of the mirror begging Liam to make him come. But somehow, all the bite goes out of Louis’s lip, and then Louis’s fingers are closing around his on his jaw, not tearing them off but joining their hands and pulling them slowly away. Louis reaches his arm back and joins the fingers of their other hands on the table, so that Harry arms are braced on Louis’s paler, more delicate ones.

“ _Alright_.” Louis’s voice is firm and wrecked all at once, and Harry shivers, because it’s been so long since he’s heard Louis forfeit his pride for _anyone_ , and now he’s letting go for _him_ , with his cock inside him in their dressing room on their first night back together. Harry’s hips snap forward, and Louis cries out. Harry doesn’t even try to slow down now, trying to focus on holding that angle that makes Louis’s back arch when he pushes deep inside him. His hips are driving into Louis faster as he looks at Louis’s blue eyes, spikes of pleasure shooting out all over his body from his cock inside Louis’s tight arse. “Fuck,” Louis says. Tears are streaming down his face as his cock pulses between them, but his eyes don’t break from Harry’s. “ _Fuck_.”

Harry bites down hard on his lip, desperate to hold off his orgasm for one more minute, for one more minute with Louis underneath him, but Louis looks into his eyes and clenches around him and Harry chokes and thrusts inside him until his cock won’t go any deeper. Louis’s thighs clamp down on his sides, the muscles in his stomach tensing as he pulls up onto Harry’s cock, working himself up and down, and Harry’s breathless as he watches his glazing eyes, because Louis’s the most beautiful thing he’s ever seen.

“I love you.” Louis’s voice is broken and Harry’s eyes sting like _fuck_ , because Louis’s drunk and he doesn’t want to come over this, doesn’t want to come over what’s going to be just some drunk _thing_ to Louis tomorrow, but Louis won’t stop. “I love you, fuck, _I love you_.” And Harry whines and buries his face in Louis’s neck and comes so hard he almost sees stars, his weight falling on Louis’s chest as he wrenches his fingers away from Louis’s and fists Louis’s cock to bring him with him. Louis’s fingers clench around his where his left hand is still joined with Louis’s right. Harry tries to brace himself on one arm, shivering hopelessly as Louis’s cum gets all over him and aftershocks tear over his body.

Louis’s eyes are wide and bright as he lies still underneath him, almost like they’re a brighter blue. He’s looking at the ceiling, and Harry rolls off a bit and lies beside him, trying to work out what he’s thinking. Louis passes him Lou Teasdale’s packet of make-up wipes, still looking at the ceiling, and Harry smiles even though he’s nervous, because Lou is going to be pretty miffed tomorrow. Louis turns to him and giggles into his throat.

“I’m drunk.” Harry’s stomach feels a little sick at Louis’s words, but he puts his fingers in Louis’s hair and Louis doesn’t turn away. “I’m fucked up.”

“I know.” Louis’s ribs are still moving up and down too quickly, and Harry lays his head on Louis’s chest, getting damp curls all over the inked words ‘It Is What It Is’. “Lou…is this…gonna be alright tomorrow?”

Louis snorts into his hair.

“Worried I won’t respect you anymore? God, you’re such a girl sometimes. Yeah, it’s going to be alright. You can return the favour with your arse while you cook me breakfast.”

“What’s wrong with being a girl?” Harry asks, feeling hurt as he gently bites at Louis’s skin. “And I don’t think Niall would like that.”

“Niall will deal with it,” Louis yawns. His breathing is getting slower and slower and his eyelashes are fluttering.

“Lou, we can’t sleep here.”

Louis rolls his eyes and leans so far over the edge of the table that Harry’s worried he’ll fall as he fumbles underneath it. He pulls himself up holding the heavy blanket that’s folded under the table and lazily tosses it over them. He wraps his fingers around Harry’s hip, coaxing until Harry turns on his side, letting Louis slide up close behind him.

“Louis, I don’t think this is what the fire blanket’s for.”

Louis just presses his back against Harry’s chest and places a wet, open-mouthed kiss on Harry’s throat, and Harry almost moans as warmth soaks over him.

“Just don’t leave me here tonight,” he whispers as his eyes close, and when he wakes up, Louis’s jumper is wrapped around him under the blanket, but Louis is gone.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hello 
> 
> [Sugarhill Park @ Tumblr](https://sugarhillpark.tumblr.com/)


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Little warning on this chapter for someone panicking and (physically) pushing someone away from them in a moment of instinct not anger, please look after yourself if this could be triggering. Some hurt/comfort, more bottom Louis, more Niall and food, internal angst monologues as always.

  
Harry stumbles into the trailer when it’s already been light for a couple of hours. Louis looks up as he comes in the door, and then quickly looks down at the plate in front of him again. He’d been feeling like a bit of a dick for leaving Harry alone in their dressing room when he’d woken up, so he’d figured he could apologise by cooking him some food for when he got back. Then Louis had realised that he never cooked anything for anyone, and consequently it would look pretty suspicious if Harry was missing in the morning and Louis was suddenly whipping up breakfast for just him.

This thought process ultimately led to the present situation, which is Liam, Zayn and Niall all sitting around the room eating sausages. Louis had managed to burn them all along with his fingers in a fit of nerves, but they all seem so totally surprised that Louis cooked them food that no one is complaining. Niall has a whole sausage half way into his mouth. He either hasn’t noticed Zayn’s sniggering, or he’s just choosing to ignore it, and Louis thinks that’s great, good for Niall, because the last thing that anyone needs to be thinking about this morning is cock, and definitely not Harry’s cock, filling him up and rubbing the sweet set of nerves inside him until he never wanted to let him go. Louis wants to bang his head on the bench.

“Someone had a nice night,” Liam says, looking Harry up and down. “Did you put the moves on that cute tech with the glasses? The Harry Styles moves? I seriously can’t believe you; I told you I really liked her.” Liam is grinning, letting Harry know that it’s alright, and Harry smiles.

“You mean like, the moves where I’m nice to women so they’re nice to me back? Yeah, I’ve been pulling loads of those moves.” Harry pokes his tongue out and Liam looks indignant.

“I’m nice to women!”

“Your idea of being nice to women is calling Sophia asking for sex at three-thirty in the morning when you’re supposed to be broken up,” Harry says. Liam puts his head in hands, forgetting that he’s holding a fork, and hits himself in the face with a large piece of sausage.

“That was _one time_ , and I’ve apologised to her for that profusely. I was _very drunk_ , okay?”

“I know,” Harry says, “Niall and I were in the next room eating crisps. You kept saying that she had the thighs of a goddess. I think you said that like eight times in one phone call.”

Liam doesn’t appear to care anymore that he’s essentially rubbing sausage grease into his face in shame. Zayn pats him on the head.

“Look, she came over anyway, so no harm no foul. She wanted the D.”

Harry’s eyes narrow in his ‘you’re objectifying women’ face, and Liam raises his hands defensively. The piece of sausage flies off his fork and hits Zayn in the chin. Zayn licks his chin and smiles serenely.

“Her words mate, not mine. She said good dick was hard to find and that she wanted some food anyway. After she came she ate an entire salami and all of my cheese and crackers while I was passed out and made off with three bottles of the best wine in my house.” Liam has a look of great admiration on his face. “And she drank a good litre of juice for some reason.”

“Actually the juice was me,” Harry says with a guilty grin, and Liam takes it as a good enough excuse to tackle him.

Louis watches as they wrestle. Liam is stronger, but Harry’s doing better than you’d expect, because he knows where Liam’s ticklish and is going for the groin at the same time. Louis tries to keep a fond smile from creeping over his face. Harry is always smarter than people expect. Harry ultimately lets Liam win, falling on his back under him and stretching his arms above his head with a smile that’s so fucking pretty that Louis suddenly feels too far away from him.

Harry’s eyes find him from across the room, open and shyly affectionate as he lies prone under Liam. Louis gives him a quick smile and hopes it doesn’t look as tight as it feels. Louis wants to put his fingers in his hair and whisper that he loved last night and forget that it ever happened all at once.

“I need a shower,” Harry says, and Liam grins and doesn’t get off him.

“Do you want some company?” Liam and Zayn say at the same time, and they both blush for some reason. Louis rolls his eyes. He doesn’t even bother trying to work out why they’ve never fucked anymore. At this point he just assumes they’re both idiots.

“Excuse me, but some of us have cooked food for you. How about you eat it first and _then_ put out for everyone else?”

Harry turns over under Liam and Liam moves back so that he can sit up.

“You made me breakfast?”

“He made us all burnt sausages,” Niall pipes up cheerfully, but Harry’s eyes are lighting up as he walks toward Louis. His green eyes are wide and bright and gorgeous as he looks at the plate that Louis’s set aside for him, brimming with pleasure as he looks back at Louis and smiles.

“Thank you,” he breathes, and Louis swallows and tries to pass him his plate. He forgets not to use his injured right hand, and Harry sees his burnt fingers for the first time and frowns. He takes the plate off Louis, setting it aside on the bench as though he’s forgotten about it completely, and holds Louis’s fingers in his own. “You hurt yourself,” he says softly, and then he lifts Louis’s fingers to his lips and kisses them, kisses them better, Louis realises, and he wants to tell him he’s an idiot but his pulse is pounding so hard as he looks at Harry that the words won’t come out.

“It’s really sweet that you made me breakfast,” Harry murmurs as he leans in toward Louis. His lips are coming closer, soft and warm and inviting, and suddenly all that Louis sees is Harry on top of him, thrusting his cock deep inside him while Louis tells him he loves him, and now it’s happening here, in front of everyone, and before Louis knows what he’s doing his arms come up in front of his chest and he’s shoving Harry away.

And the worst thing about it isn’t watching Harry fall. It isn’t even the sound when he hits his head on the edge of the bench on his way down. The worst thing is the look on Harry’s face when he looks up at Louis from the floor. Louis’s chest aches like something’s _wrong_ with him, and Louis _never_ wants to see that look again. He feels shocked as he looks down at his own hands, almost not believing he would ever _push_ Harry.

“Jesus, are you alright, Harry?” Liam asks, pushing himself up from the floor and walking over to him. Harry slowly picks himself up, looking down as Liam pushes his hair aside to check if his head’s alright.

“Yeah, I –” Harry swallows, and Louis wants to kick himself but all he can do is look at Harry in wide-eyed panic, like his limbs are frozen. “I don’t really feel hungry anymore. I’m really sorry, Lou.” Harry turns and rushes out of the bus, and Louis is left standing in the kitchen feeling like he’s been hit by a train. He knows the guilt and tears in Harry’s eyes when he said his name weren’t really about not wanting to eat breakfast anymore, and Louis wants to rush out after him, to tell him that there’s nothing to be sorry for, that he was the one who dragged Harry into their dressing room last night and practically begged him to fuck him, but he’s not ready to face that conversation yet. Louis doesn’t know if he ever will be.

Liam looks at the door for a minute and then walks back to his chair and sits down. He opens his mouth and then exhales, as though he’s decided it’s probably best that he doesn’t say what he wants to say to Louis right now. “Louis,” he says slowly, “in what universe is what you just did okay?” Niall has his hands on his hips, which is quite impressive, Louis thinks dejectedly, because he’s had to stuff almost half a sausage into his mouth to free up his left hand.

“I’m hungover, give it a rest,” Louis says, finding his voice. It’s croaky and weak and he wants to crawl inside his bed and never come out.

“Sorry,” Liam says, “tell me again about the circumstances where that’s _ever_ an appropriate response to someone thanking you for breakfast.” Louis looks down at the bench. Liam waits for him to explain himself and then shakes his head in disbelief. “I’m going after him.”

Zayn puts his hand on Liam’s arm.

“I think he might want to be alone, mate.” Zayn looks sideways at Louis. “Or alone with Louis.” Liam relents, giving Louis a filthy look as he leaves the room and shuts the door to the bunks.

“Niall, come on,” Louis says, as Niall makes to follow him.

“Not cool, man,” Niall says, shaking his head as he takes Harry’s sausages with him into the bunks.

Louis turns on Zayn.

“Wonderful. And why aren’t you fucked-off with me?”

“I’m angry with you,” Zayn says through a mouthful of sausage, “I’m just so high right now I don’t think I can walk. I think I’m still high from last night, like, you have no idea. I woke up in Liam’s bed right, but wearing Liam’s trousers and no shirt, and Liam was on the floor. Good shit, mate. Liam and I tried to call you to hit the joint with us but you two just walked off into the night with this look like you’d joined a cult or something.”

 _Because you were high_ , Louis thinks as he looks incredulously at Zayn. _That’s_ why you ended up in Liam’s bed. Louis wonders why everyone is allowed an excuse except for him, why no one ever talks about Zayn and Liam making cow eyes at each other, but it’s alright for Liam to think he knows everything about Louis and Harry when they’re alone, to ask Harry when he’s on his _cock_ if he’ll moan Louis’s name when he comes. And then Louis realises that Liam never said his name. He realises that he just _knew_ who Harry wanted as soon as he told Liam he didn’t want to come, like he just knew what he wanted last night as soon as he touched Harry’s skin.

 _You knew what you wanted on your first night home without him_ , a voice inside his head tells him, and Louis tries to shut out the memory of waking up from a nightmare in his bed and stretching out his arms over and over, trying to find Harry’s body beside him as tears streaked down his face. Louis had tried to fall asleep for four hours before giving up and fingering himself until he came, still teary and disoriented by the new sensation and the empty space beside him, but thinking the guilty comfort of pretending it was Harry inside him was better, better than _nothing_.

And Louis’s been biting his nails for days, because if Harry had been there when he’d woken up, he _knows_ he would’ve let him fuck him in the bed he’s slept in since he was fourteen, in his family home, and he doesn’t know if he’d be able to come back from that, come back to dating girls and planning to get married and have a couple of babies when _this_ is all over.

“Louis mate, you look pale, are you sick?” Zayn says, looking concerned as Louis’s fingers curl tightly around the edge of the bench.

 _He’s your best friend_ , Louis thinks, and he looks up at Zayn and just whispers “Yeah.”

*

Paul Higgins is suspicious the moment that he finds a crying Harry Styles on the steps of his trailer. Harry has tried to curl into a ball to fit on the steps, but Harry has forgotten once again that he’s 5’11, and the ball is ridiculous and mainly composed of legs. Paul’s had his share of emotional pop star boys on his hands since he started working for One Direction. Louis is prone to hissy fits when he’s tired or doesn’t get his way, Liam goes off about how difficult his life is whenever anything goes wrong for him while he’s drunk, Niall becomes grumpy and unmanageable when he’s hungry, and Zayn broods.

But Harry Styles is an optimistic, happy-go-lucky creature, who is only rude on rare occasions and always has a heartfelt apology ready half an hour later, complete with a gift. He usually brings you another gift later because he feels that the first gift wasn’t good enough. He didn’t get into this state by himself. Paul senses interference.

He gathers Harry up into his arms, ignoring the muffled protests against his chest, and resolutely carries him towards his own trailer. Louis Tomlinson is going to deal with the consequences of his diva behaviour or Paul is going to tell Simon who was responsible for driving that golf cart full of Easter eggs into his pool in the night last Easter, and that’s the end of it.

*

Louis is lying on the sofa. Liam and Niall had come out of the bunks a while ago and left with Zayn. Niall told him they were going for some more food, while Liam piggybacked Zayn out of the door and gave Louis a disapproving look, just in case his disapproval hadn’t been completely clear. Louis is alternating between sternly talking to himself about pulling his shit together and just feeling awful and writing texts to Eleanor. He’s deleted and retyped ‘Am I a complete dick?’ four times now. Louis looks at his phone and deletes the words again. He doesn’t even know if he’s looking for reassurance or just confirmation at this point.

He wants to try not to dwell on it, to just wait until the whole thing blows over, but Louis hates it when Harry’s upset and it’s hard to think of anything else now he’s alone. He doesn’t bother trying to tell himself that pushing someone over is a normal reaction to freaking out about letting them fuck you. He doesn’t understand why Harry had to try to kiss him though. It’s not like they’re _boyfriends_. It’s not like Harry needed to practically tattoo ‘I let a bloke fuck me up the arse’ on Louis’s forehead with his pretty, still-swollen lips and his fucked-out doe eyes. Louis doesn’t understand why anyone needs to know. It’s not anyone’s business except for his and Harry’s.

Louis finds himself starting to wonder why he wants to keep it secret, that he’s been _done_ like that, pushed down and fucked like Harry probably fucks his girls, and he clamps down on the thought angrily, because he doesn’t owe shit to anyone who wants to know why he wants to stick it inside him. Not even Harry. Louis bets that Zayn never has to ask more than once for Harry’s cock in his arse. Harry probably begs him for that, Louis thinks, struggling not to picture Harry moaning with Zayn trapped underneath him.

Louis wants to pull Harry’s hair until he’s flushed and hard and then lean in and ask ‘ _Did they all want you like that?_ _Did Taylor like you on top like I did? Did the girl you lost it to?_ ’ Louis worries at the hem of his shirt and bites his lip as he pictures Harry groaning in pleasure on top of endless pretty faces. He tries not to think about Harry’s flushed, anxious face when Louis asked for it. He wishes Harry had fucking flipped him over and used him, like Louis’s done to him more times than he wants to count. Why did he need to make it fucking _sweet_?

Louis feels like he would’ve dealt better with finding himself lying naked beside Harry’s sleeping body if he’d just been pressed against the wall, his stomach scraping on the cold surface as Harry rucked his shirt up, shoved his fingers in his mouth and fucked him from behind. He wants Harry’s teeth sinking into his shoulder, and Harry never looking into his eyes so that Louis doesn’t get so _lost_ , filling him up with cum and then smacking his hip as he walks out. Louis digs his fingers into his palm as he feels himself getting hard, suddenly acutely aware of where he’s still sore inside from last night. _Fuck_ , _Harry_ , Louis thinks. _Why do you always get to be the better person?_ He digs the heel of his hand into his crotch and bites back a whine. _Fucking always_.

Louis wonders if he has enough time before the others get back as he unzips his pants and pushes his fingers inside them, and he doesn’t know when he became sixteen again, but _fuck_. He’s trying to spread his legs on the sofa without pulling his jeans down when something fucking _falls on top of him from the fucking sky_ , _Jesus Christ_. Louis’s first reaction is to let out a mortifyingly high-pitched yelp and then he thinks, well this is wonderful, because Liam’s clearly decided to drop something fucking heavy on him to express his feelings about Louis’s wrongdoings while Louis is _trying_ to masturbate on the sofa, and yes, Liam, more violence is definitely the answer to this problem.

Louis is preparing to say something testy when he’s not feeling so winded, but then the something _moves_ and looks up at him from under a tangle of brown curls. Louis’s head whips around in time to see Paul ceremoniously dusting off his hands as he leaves the trailer. Louis has to hand it to him; Paul is an impressive opponent. Harry is looking up at him with huge, deer-in-headlight eyes as his elbow digs into Louis’s sternum. Louis: 1, Paul: 1, Louis concedes.

“Oops,” Harry says. His voice is tiny and his eyes are hopeful and Louis melts.

“Hi.” Louis doesn’t know who moves first, but then they’re kissing, their hands on each other’s faces and in each other’s hair, not stopping until they run out of breath, and as they pull away they both start talking at once.

“I’m so sorry that I pushed you,” Louis gets out as Harry starts babbling.

“I’m so sorry about last night, Lou, I just, you said you wanted to, I took advantage of you,” Harry’s chest is heaving and Louis reaches out to touch him.

“It’s fine.” And Louis feels sick as he widens his eyes, deliberately, innocently, and tells him, “I would like it if you didn’t tell anyone about it, though.” Never mind that Louis had never been as drunk as he’d told himself he was, as drunk as he’d pretended to be to get what he wanted. Never mind that Harry was drunk as well. Never mind that Harry’s never tried to hide the fact that he spreads his legs for Louis any night Louis wants it, that he’s been fucked in Louis’s lap in front of their friends and never resented Louis for a moment. Harry’s eyes are full of sympathy and determination as he nods, and Louis feels like he should be arrested for a crime.

“I won’t say anything, Lou, I promise. We never have to do that again.” 

Louis leans into to Harry. He wants to tear at his own hands as he opens his mouth, but he’s too ready for it, too desperate to care enough to _stop_ as he whispers, “That’s not exactly what I meant.” Harry’s eyes are nervous as Louis guides his hand to his crotch, and Louis internally kicks himself as he realises a second too late that his fly is already undone and Harry pulls back.

“Were you touching yourself? Do you get hard from pushing me around?” Harry’s face is totally unreadable for once, and Louis’s heart flies into his throat.

“Not like that. Never like that.” Louis shifts awkwardly under Harry as he feels Harry’s skittish fingers settling on his skin.

“Am I on your-?” Harry asks, and Louis nods, because Harry’s weight is on his _everything_ , and is digging into it quite painfully. 

“Yeah.”

Harry tries to manoeuvre himself off Louis’s ribs and ends up driving what feels like his full weight into Louis’s thigh with his knee.

“Is that-?”

“Ow,” Louis says, and Harry flushes and hangs his head. Louis lifts Harry’s head up and strokes his fingers along his jaw. “Come here.” Harry relents and kisses him, and their bodies start to move around each other, fitting together comfortably just like Louis thought they would, because they always do, really, when they’re together like this. “I want to do more of what we did last night,” Louis murmurs, and he swallows the small, choked moan that comes out of Harry’s mouth.

“Do you really?” Harry’s voice is raspy and low and it goes straight to Louis’s cock. Harry doesn’t look sarcastic, just tired and uncertain as he lies against Louis’s chest. Louis arches up against him, lapping at the tattoo under his collarbone until Harry moans. Lapping up Harry’s warmth.

“Yeah, I want your cock.” Louis bites gently at Harry’s lip and kneads his arse. “God, you still smell like me from last night. You’re filthy.” He licks a stripe up Harry’s neck. “I smell good on you.” Harry rubs his thigh against Louis’s cock and Louis moans.

“I like that,” Harry says. “Remember that time you came on my face?” Harry’s breath is hot on his neck as he rubs his thigh harder against Louis. “The crowd was screaming _so_ _loud_ half an hour before we went on, and you got me on my knees in that cupboard and put it in my throat.” Louis’s cock is throbbing and he feels almost disbelieving, because Harry’s so absorbed in his story, as though he’s so turned on by it he hasn’t even realised the effect it’s having on Louis’s cock. “I got hard when we sang ‘Teenage Dirtbag’ because I could smell your cum all over me.” Harry lets out a half-laugh half-choke as Louis grinds up into his thigh. “God, I couldn’t stop touching my mouth in front of a hundred thousand people. I didn’t shower for like thirty hours and I put my face in your shirt that I found on the floor and jerked off just so-”

“Shut up before I come in my pants, yeah?” Louis yanks Harry’s jeans down and Harry grins.

“You like that? When I talk about touching myself?” Harry nuzzles into Louis’s throat and spreads his warm hands over Louis’s stomach under his shirt. “You can watch one day if you want, Lou.”

“Wouldn’t that be nice?” Louis says conversationally as he firmly pushes Harry’s head down, because really, he tells himself, no one’s self-control would hold up against this kind of pressure.

Harry’s got his fingers wrapped around Louis’s cock and his mouth open when Niall comes in the door, getting an eyeful of Harry’s bare ass and his face in Louis’s crotch. Louis is pretty glad that he isn’t holding knives and probably isn’t particularly good at hurling them with great precision across the room, because fifty-percent of his brain is in his balls at the minute and he feels like that’s how he’d be dealing with this interruption if he was.

“Jesus Christ,” Niall says, clutching his smoothie like it’s a crucifix that wards off gay sex. “It’s not even midday for fuck’s sake.”

“What the fuck are you doing here?” Louis asks incredulously as Niall continues to _not leave_. “I thought you were getting food.”

“I was, I just couldn’t keep watching Zayn lick mayonnaise off his fingers. That shit wasn’t right. He was on his seventh burger when I left. Liam just keeps buying them for him. I think he’s never seen someone that high before.” Niall shakes his head. Mostly he just looks put out that Zayn’s managed to eat more than him.

“That’s lovely, Niall,” Louis says, “I was about to get my dick sucked, but never mind me. Frankly, after that scintillating interlude, I’ve completely lost interest in getting off in favour of listening to ‘Fascinating Story Time with Niall Horan’.”

Niall ignores what Louis’s sure is his best penetrating glare yet as he turns to leave.

“I’m going to hang out with Paul for a half an hour, and I swear to God, Harry, if you’re still violating my sofa when I get back I’m going to take all your Burberry shite and set it on fire.”

When Niall’s left, Harry blinks up at him and Louis lifts his hips, biting his lip and giving him an imploring look. Harry flushes and turns away from Louis’s cock in front of his face.

“I want to, but Niall, the sofa-”

Louis loses patience with Harry’s fumbling words as he tries not to look at Louis’s cock. He sits up and thrusts his weight into Harry, pushing him back with an arm on his chest and then grabbing his thighs so that Harry’s legs are in the air and Louis’s between them. Louis gives Harry his best doll eyes and grinds in his lap until Harry’s head falls back on the sofa from the friction of Louis’s crotch against his. He pulls off Harry’s shirt, touching him more than he needs to, and then whispers “Then I’ll put you on the floor.”

Harry’s head flies up but Louis is quicker. He gets up, gets a hold of Harry’s legs and pulls. Harry’s arse hits the floor with a thud. Harry’s breathing quickens and he leans up as Louis descends on him, and Louis would feel smug if he wasn’t busy being completely distracted by how fucking beautiful Harry looks and how relieved he is that Harry still _wants_ him.

“Ow,” Harry says, but his pupils are wide already and he wraps his legs around Louis when Louis climbs on top of him. The inside of Harry’s mouth tastes strong but so good, and it turns Louis on, because it’s the taste of last night. “No one’s ever going to let me live that down,” Harry says when their lips part. His voice is breathy and he’s licking his sticky lips. Louis doesn’t think he really cares. He crawls down Harry’s body with a smirk, pulling the legs of his jeans off his calves and admiring the view.

Harry’s long legs are open for him and his stomach is quivering a little where he’s pulling up to look down at Louis. Louis moves up so that the soft ends of his hair brush over Harry’s cock and pretends that he doesn’t notice. He massages the muscles in Harry’s thighs as he licks the crease of his thigh and Harry moans. Harry’s thighs fall apart as Louis bites the tender skin inside them and Louis holds his ribs down as he sucks on the head of his cock.

“Shit, wait,” Louis says as Harry shudders underneath him. “We need a condom.”

“Fuck, I forgot,” Harry flushes. Louis waits for him to produce one and then makes an exasperated sound when Harry just lies there.

“Well?”

“You cleaned me out last night, Lou. Sorry.” Louis tries to gracefully hide his mortification as it occurs to him that he’s been expecting Harry to permanently provide him with condoms to fuck him with. “I think I had two, but then yesterday afternoon Liam-”

“Do you know where they are?” Louis interrupts, a bit more sharply than he’d intended to.

“Try your pockets.”

“Why the fuck would they be in _my_ pockets?” Louis asks, but when he puts his hand in his left pocket he finds a condom and a packet of lube. The condom is vanilla-flavoured. Louis looks at it in utter disbelief.

“ _Why_ do you and I get different-flavoured condoms?”

Harry shrugs.

“I’ve never asked Niall. Liam’s ones are chocolate,” he adds with a thoughtful look. Louis fumes. _Vanilla_. Fuck you, Niall. Louis is going to have words with Niall about this.

Louis digs in his other pocket and bites his lip as he looks down at the butterfly on Harry’s stomach.

“We’ve only got one though. Is it alright if we-”

“Anything.”

Louis swallows, and something feels tight in his chest for a second, because there’s no doubt in Harry’s eyes, just arousal and a trust that Louis doesn’t really think he deserves. He tries to maintain eye contact with Harry as he drags his jeans off, tries to make it good for him, because he knows that Harry likes that. Harry makes a tiny moaning sound and reaches for Louis as Louis goes for his briefs.

“Let me take them off you.”

Louis hesitates with his fingers under the seam of his briefs. He can feel his heartbeat quickening in panic, and something inside him is trying to back away, but then Harry says, “Please, Lou” and Louis leans back on his arms raises his hips. He knows that shouldn’t turn him on so much: giving Harry access to his body like that. Louis thrusts his torso forward and lets Harry do what he wants to him, gasping as Harry trails heated, open-mouthed kisses down his chest and his abdomen. He tries not to get off on this so _hard_ , tries to tell himself he’s still in control, that he could just _stop_ , if he really wanted to.

Louis wraps his fingers in Harry’s hair, and there are butterflies in his stomach as he arches into his kisses and tells himself that he could get dressed right now and go get an ice cream or something like they used to, that he wouldn’t ache for _anything_ if this just ended. And if Harry dripped ice cream onto his chest while he was telling one of his dumb stories that Louis loves so much, like he _always_ fucking does - and why the _fuck_ does Louis keep buying him ice cream- if he did, Louis tells himself he wouldn’t think about the watching the tiny beads of sweat shimmering all over Harry’s collar bones as he thrust inside of him.

Louis closes his eyes and rocks forward as Harry takes off his briefs. Harry’s hands cover so much of him, and they’re always so warm. Louis flushes, because his cock is throbbing over just Harry’s fingertips on his skin, and he realises that blindfolded and half-dreaming, he’d still know those hands. He opens his eyes and finds Harry looking up at him, lowered over his cock. His body is all long legs and filthy, beautiful angles, stretched out in front of Louis, and Louis remembers his voice when he told him _‘Anything_ ’ and shudders. Harry is looking at him like he’s in awe, and Louis realises that he was probably making a stupid face. He tries to hide the colour filling his cheeks, letting his long hair fall over his face and putting his fingers over Harry’s where they’re cradling his hips. Louis rolls his hips into their fingers and his cock bobs up and down in front of Harry’s face.

“Do you want me to go down on you?” Harry asks, and before he can tell himself it’s not a good idea, Louis says “No.” Harry frowns and looks confused when he nods.

“Alright. What do you want, Lou?”

Louis bites his lip.

“I want to ride you.”

Harry’s cock jumps and his eyes widen.

“Aren’t you still sore? The first time Liam-”

“Let’s play a new game,” Louis says, spreading his fingers over Harry’s chest and pushing him flat on his back as he crawls astride his hips, “where we don’t talk about other people that we’re fucking while _we’re_ fucking, yeah?” Louis gives Harry a wide smile and tries to look relaxed as Harry looks up at him. “Come on, it’s weird. It’s not like you think about _me_ while Liam’s shagging you.”

Harry looks away from Louis with a strange, flushed expression, so Louis leans down and licks the column of his throat. “ _Come on_ , Harry. Be with me when you’re with me.” Louis reaches back and grabs Harry’s cock, rubbing it against his arse. “Don’t you want me on your _cock_?”

“I’m with you,” Harry gasps. His voice is hot and thick with lust and something else that Louis doesn’t want to think about too much. When Harry whispers “I want you”, he just wants to have this.

He lets Harry finger him, lets him take it slow as he spreads him open. He’s still so sore from last night, but Louis likes that, moaning as his muscles weakly protest being stretched all over again. He arches for Harry, rolls his hips in little circles and tosses his hair, bites his lip and plays it up. He holds Harry’s eyes, not wanting him to forget who he’s with. He tells him it feels good, tells him ‘ _Put them deeper_ ’, and when Harry asks in a whisper if he’s ready, Louis leans down and licks a circle all around his parted lips and lets his eyelashes flutter over Harry’s skin as he nods. Harry arches under him, breath stuttering as he rolls the condom on, wraps one arm around Louis’s shoulder and aligns his cock with Louis’s arse.

He tastes so good that Louis gets absorbed in it, pushing his tongue inside Harry’s mouth and pressing his fingers into his face. He’s almost shocked when the tip of Harry’s cock pushes inside his arse, straightening up so fast that he’s forced down another inch. Louis whines and arches his back. Harry quickly grabs his waist, biting his lip and holding Louis where he is.

“Slower, Lou,” Harry breathes, even as his stomach strains from the tension, and Louis flushes, self-conscious and annoyed at Harry for trying to pretend that he’s the one who needs it slow. Louis sometimes wants to slap him for always putting Louis’s pride first, for letting _all of them_ take his shyness and his limits apart, letting them lay him out and mess him up and come inside him on hotel tables so that they can have girls in the beds later. Louis almost resents the way that Harry gives himself away and then always puts his pieces back together so that they’re somehow more gorgeous than before, never complaining and never holding back. Louis wonders if Harry ever brings girls back to their rooms these days. He wonders if he’s as tender with them as he tries to be with Louis. Or more.

“More,” Louis says quietly, and Harry lets him go just enough so that he can take another inch before he catches him again. Louis’s palms are damp on Harry’s chest and he’s trying not to let his chest tremble like Harry’s lower lip is. He’s stretched and sore and he feels too full already and like he wants to stretch wider all at once. It’s overwhelming, and pleasure is starting to thread through Louis’s body from where the head of Harry’s cock is throbbing inside him. Harry is trying to swallow underneath him, his face guilty and hopelessly pretty in its bed of curls on the floor as he tries not to get any pleasure where Louis is hurting. Louis wants to hold him down and get his cock so far inside him that Harry forgets where he ends and Louis begins. He wants to ride his cock until Harry _cries_ because he feels so good. 

“Let me take all of you,” Louis whispers, trying to look sure of himself as he ghosts his fingers over Harry’s nipples. “Let me ride you.” Harry’s hips arch up and Harry looks so fucking pretty chewing on his lip that Louis wants to die.

“Go slow,” Harry mumbles, his chest flushing as he tries to hold his own hips down. “I’m not fucking around, Lou, go slow.”

Louis drags his fingers down Harry’s chest over the butterfly on his stomach as he sinks down on Harry’s cock.

“ _Fuck_ ,” he pants, biting down on his lip and closing his eyes as he stills. He opens his eyes when he begins to move up and down. Harry’s breathing is heavy, his eyes focused on Louis, and Louis’s eyes feel watery as something hysterical pushes inside his chest. “We are literally fucking around, Haz.” His shoulders shake as he laughs and lifts his hips, and Harry’s breath whistles through his teeth before he whispers back, “ _Fucking around_.”

“It’s good,” Louis says, head falling back as he rocks his hips forward. Pleasure is soaking up his body and he doesn’t give a fuck about the cramping in his thighs or which one of them he’s really trying to reassure.

“You’re good, Lou,” Harry moans, and Louis pinches his nipple and grinds down.

“I bet you say that to all the boys,” he breathes in Harry’s face, and Harry’s lips part in what looks like shock before he wraps his fingers around Louis’s neck and whispers, “You’re breaking the rules of your game.” Harry’s mouth closes around a tendon in Louis’s throat as he thrusts his cock up inside him. “Take all of me,” Harry says against Louis’s throat, his balls pressing up into Louis’s ass, giving him all of his cock like that, making Louis’s cock leak as he rubs the skin where their bodies are joining.“Just like you wanted. Be with me.”

Louis gasps and pulls back, but Harry’s fingers don’t stop rubbing at that sensitive skin where his cock is thrusting inside Louis, and Louis just gives up and tries to find a rhythm that makes Harry moan. He rocks his hips recklessly into Harry’s fingers and his cock until Harry is craning his neck and rubbing the pad of his thumb into Louis’s thigh.

“ _Shit_ ,” Harry says as Louis drags his body up so that Harry’s cock is only just inside him and then twists his hips as he comes back down. Louis stares down at Harry’s face, not caring that his mouth is open as he rides his cock. Harry’s cock is rubbing against that sweet place inside him every time Louis takes him to the base, and the pleasure is spreading over his body with the soreness, creating an ache that makes Louis moan for more. The muscles in Harry’s arms are starting to tense and release as he tries to fight off his orgasm, and Louis lowers his eyelashes and rubs his hands all over them.

“You’re so tense,” he murmurs, getting off on the control as Harry’s hips jerk up at his words. “Don’t you want me to take your cum as well? Didn’t you like coming in my arse last night?”

Harry’s neck stretches prettily as he arches off the floor like a fucking contortionist, and Louis fists his cock so he doesn’t come as Harry’s cock pushes even deeper inside him. Then Harry lurches off the floor, wrapping an arm tightly around Louis’s torso and pressing their chests together. Their tattoos and damp skin slide against each other as Harry’s hips come up fast and he entwines his fingers with Louis’s on Louis’s cock.

“This time you come first.”

Louis whines in Harry’s lap, jerked up and down on his cock as Harry thrusts inside him. Their fingers move in time, just how Louis likes it, and it’s the thought that Harry’s memorised the pressure he likes on his cock, more than anything else, that makes Louis tense up and spill all over their chests. Harry’s eyes flutter closed and he lasts for ten more thrusts before his arm clamps around Louis and he just shudders and murmurs “God, Lou.” Louis has to count the thrusts so that he has something to hold onto as what he’s just done hits him in the chest like a bullet.

Louis winces as he pulls off Harry’s cock, because it _hurts_ , and he realises he really will feel it while Harry’s fucking Liam tonight. It’s unbelievable how sore he is, and his eyes are tearing up at the sting from separating his body from Harry’s too fast. Harry is murmuring something, but Louis ignores him and collapses on his back, waiting for his breathing to even out as the words ‘ _Be with me_ ’ echo softly in his head. And Louis suddenly misses some of the things he used to have. He misses Eleanor, her pretty, feminine face and their simple, affectionate bond that he never needs to defend to himself. He misses _The X Factor_ , being carried around by his new best friend and believing it was normal, when you were only eighteen and full of hormones, for it to get you hard when you heard your best friend trying to be quiet while he was getting off in his bunk at night.

Louis misses his hometown. He thinks about passing his old toys on to his sisters, even if he still wanted them sometimes. And he thinks about passing Harry around that circle on the floor like a doll. He thinks about Harry’s smiling pink lips and golden skin, about Harry not caring who he’s turning over for. They’ve always shared so much, the five of them, and Harry’s always loved being touched. Louis doesn’t understand why it’s suddenly so hard to share.

He puts his arm over his eyes and gingerly presses his fingers against his arse, trying to get a hold of the new soreness inside him. It’s then that Niall comes back in and finds Louis and Harry lying on the floor beside the sofa with cum all over their chests.

“A good one foot away from the sofa, you dicks,” Niall is saying disgustedly, “Slow clap for you.” Niall is literally slow clapping them as the aftershocks roll over Louis’s body, and Louis’s pretty sure he would feel amused, if he didn’t somehow feel like crying.

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hello 
> 
> [Sugarhill Park @ Tumblr](https://sugarhillpark.tumblr.com/)


	6. Chapter 6

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No particularly explicit sex in this chapter, sorry guys, but can I offer you instead: rapping, highly implausible fanmail events involving a crop top, weird guest appearance by a tin of condensed milk, and Niall being a legend.

Niall is worried about Louis. Not in the way that he’s usually worried about Louis, like when he’s worried that Louis is going to call a journalist a ‘condescending twat’ to their face during an interview again. The damage control after that incident involved Harry and Niall doing an interview that was twice as long with the journalist the next day, after a great deal of angry yelling from Simon about how the rest of them couldn’t be trusted to ‘represent themselves with dignity for fifteen bollocksing minutes’. Niall doesn’t know what exactly was dignified about Simon undoing three more buttons on Harry’s shirt before thrusting them both at the journalist as he muttered ‘Turn the charm up, both of you’ in the name of dodging unfavourable press.

Niall is still resentful about that, though the buttons turned out to be a surprisingly good move given that the journalist was a middle-aged man. Niall has to admit that Simon’s insight into people in the industry is extremely frightening. He still doesn’t know how Harry extricated himself from that coffee invitation. Or if he did. Niall tries not to think about these things.

Niall is worried about Louis because Louis _isn’t_ being a dick. He’s already seen him walk in on Harry fucking first Liam and then Zayn within a six hour time frame, and Louis’s not even sniping at anyone. He’s just sitting at the bench playing with his phone with a far-away look in his blue eyes while his fingers pull apart a paper serviette from his coffee. He’s torn it into tiny pieces while Niall watches, and Niall doesn’t think he even realises he’s doing it. He wants to say something to Louis, but he knows if he does Louis will just try to turn it into a joke. Niall retreats into his bunk with his large cardboard box of condoms that’s just arrived, because the pieces of serviette are about a quarter of an inch square now, and Louis’s getting too depressing for further observation.

Harry is passed out on his bunk with a half-eaten banana in his hand. Niall sighs in exasperation and pulls a blanket over him. He takes the banana off him and takes it with him into his bunk to eat. Niall silently praises himself for doing a good deed by not letting Harry get it in his hair. It doesn’t hurt that the banana is delicious. Niall glances back at Harry before he pulls the curtain on his bunk closed and worries. Niall doesn’t know much about gay sex, but he’s pretty sure that when you’re performing four nights a week you need to not do so much of it that you’re unable to get food into you without falling asleep. He makes a mental note to ask the others to go easier on Harry and starts sorting condoms into flavours.

Niall’s condom-allocation system is carefully organised so that he knows that he’s given everyone enough condoms, and that he’s given Harry the most. It’s also great for reminding him who to be the most shitty at for leaving condom wrappers on the floor. Not that Niall will ever admit it to the rest of his band, but he would rather be shaking strawberry condom wrappers out of his hoodies every morning than facing the idea of any of them getting sick. No one is getting an STI on Niall Horan’s watch. Niall’s been reading up on it, and he figures if you can’t stop them, and you refuse to join them, you can at least stop them from contracting preventable diseases from each other, the hormonal idiots.

When Niall’s finished arranging condoms and packets of lubricant into pairs, he tiptoes around the bunks putting them into the appropriate pockets of all the jeans on the floor. Niall smiles to himself at how easy it is to identify what belongs to whom. Harry’s ridiculously long legs mark out his jeans, even when they don’t have a scarf trailing from one of the pockets. Zayn’s black and grey skinnies are smaller and straighter, because Zayn is one slender guy, and he’s always somehow managed to drape them over Liam’s. Liam’s jeans are looser than the others, and Louis’s are always stretched in the arse. _I’m not even shagging any of you_ , Niall thinks as he wrestles a cherry-flavoured condom into a pocket that appears to have a blunt in it. Niall sometimes doubts his mental stability.

He gives himself an extra point as he manages to get condoms into both pockets of the jeans that Harry’s wearing without making him stir for more than a second. Niall thinks that Harry’s going to be out like a tired puppy for another two hours, so he crawls back into his bunk and starts softly strumming his acoustic guitar. He’s surprised when Harry crawls in beside him a couple of minutes later, rubbing his eyes with a disoriented face that even Niall has to admit is cute. Harry taps his fingers on the top of his guitar in a steady rhythm as Niall plays, like he’s trying to focus through his sleepy state.

“You’re getting really good,” Harry mumbles.

“I know,” Niall says, but secretly he has to try not to puff out his chest, because he’s been practicing a lot and Harry has a really good ear. Harry lays himself out on Niall’s bunk and rests his head on his hand. His curls are messed up and he looks exhausted.

“Niall,” Harry says slowly, and Niall misses a string, because there’s something about Harry’s voice that catches him off guard. “Has Louis like…seemed off to you lately?”

“Louis always seems off to me,” Niall hedges. “At the last hotel I swear he was on the phone to room-service for forty fucking minutes arguing with them while I was trying to sleep because they wouldn’t bring him Frosties.”

“No, but like,” Harry clears his throat, “has he said anything to you lately?”

Niall puts his guitar down. Something in his chest just collapses at how casual Harry is trying to sound and how totally he’s failing to sound casual at all. Harry always wears his heart on his sleeve, and Niall’s heart goes out to him. He just doesn’t know what to say.

“Well, the other day he told me to blow him because I was ignoring his blocking at soundcheck. I’m pretty sure he thinks we’re his football team.”

Harry sighs and seems to sink further into the mattress, like his body is a little heavier than before. Harry’s sad smile is more than Niall can cope with after Louis’s serviette-ruining, and he scrambles for a way to distract him. Humming ‘I Knew You Were Trouble’ isn’t the most original way of teasing Harry, but it’s a reliable one. Niall acts like he can’t see the reproachful look that Harry’s giving him as he starts playing the chords.

“Oh my God, Niall, come on.”

Niall puts on a serious, soulful face as he turns his guitar away from Harry to stop him from swatting at it and breaks out some lyrics.

“Flew me to places I’d never been,” Niall croons, batting his eyelashes at Harry. Harry launches himself at him. “Now I’m lying on the cold hard ground!” Niall yells triumphantly from underneath him as Harry wrangles the guitar out of his hands. “TROUBLE, TROUBLE, TROUBLE!” Harry gives up and puts his face in Niall’s pillow in resignation.

“I hate you.” Niall grins at Harry’s muffled words and ruffles his hair.

“You’re just jealous because Taylor Swift hasn’t made me sound like a total knob in front of millions of people.”

“I’m not a knob.” Harry mumbles resentfully. “You’re a knob.”

Niall pats him on the head. Harry grunts at him and doesn’t move, so Niall picks up his guitar again and resolutely balances it on Harry’s arse. When he actually sees Harry’s arse in his jeans, Niall does a double take. The rise of Harry’s bum from his lower back is far more discernible in those jeans than Niall cares for it to be in his presence, and they’re hugging his thighs so tightly that Niall’s concerned about his circulation. 

“Harry, don’t wanna be rude mate, but what the bloody hell kind of jeans do you think you’re wearing?”

Harry sits up and gives his jeans a confused look.

“Perrie gave them to me.”

Niall’s eyes narrow. _I see how it is, Perrie Edwards_ , he thinks. Now that he thinks of it, Liam, Louis and Zayn have definitely been behaving more like horny teenage idiots around Harry than usual lately. Well, Niall’s not going to have Perrie running interference on his bus. Niall needs his sleep, and there are _children_ at their shows, for Christ’s sake. He’s taking a strong stance on this one. There will no more tumble-drying of those pants. Not while Niall is around.

“What?” Harry is asking him, and Niall says that he’ll tell him when he’s older. Harry socks him in the arm, but otherwise seems content with that. Niall just wishes he could deal with Louis that easily.

*

Niall is having trouble sleeping. He doesn’t even know what’s worse: Harry’s broken moaning while Liam goes down on him or the movie marathon that Zayn has going on in the bunk below him. Niall takes it as a personal affront to his dignity that he can now tell the difference between his friends’ getting-head moans and their normal moans. Zayn is watching Cheech & Chong movies, which would be okay except that Zayn is so high that he can’t keep track of what’s going on and keeps loudly asking questions and then getting distressed when the people on screen don’t talk back.

Niall knows that one of these things _should_ be the worst thing about tonight. He doesn’t want to admit that they’re not, but Niall’s never been good at lying to himself. And Niall wants to kick himself for being such a soft-hearted idiot, but the worst thing about tonight is _Louis_. Niall is used to worrying about Louis when someone else is with Harry in the bunks at night. Niall is used to listening to the thumping of Louis’s body as he tosses in his bunk like he’s trying to crush something under his weight. But tonight is a lot worse. Louis is completely silent. It doesn’t even occur to Niall that Louis might be asleep. He’s watched _The Breakfast Club_ twice and he still can’t get to sleep, because Louis isn’t making any noise at all, and all Niall can do is bite his fingernails and _worry_.

Niall hears Louis’s feet touch the floor at four a.m. Louis is light on his feet, and Zayn is snoring softly now, but Niall recognises his footfalls as he quietly leaves the bunks anyway. He thinks about it for about four seconds and then silently slips out of his bunk and follows him. He pauses and looks through the darkness at Liam and Harry’s sleeping faces. Liam is sleeping on his side, turned toward Zayn’s bunk. His arm is draped over Harry’s torso, but the back of his hand is resting on the bed, palm empty and turned upwards. Niall doesn’t need to look at Zayn to know who he’s facing. Harry’s arm is flung above his head, and the soft skin under his upper arm looks pale in the moonlight under the inked word ‘Hi’. Niall gently moves Harry’s arm down so that he doesn’t get woken up when he loses circulation. Niall loves them all so much, but he kind of wants to knock their heads together.

He finds Louis sitting in the doorway of their trailer, smoking with his feet on the steps. Niall sits down beside him and wraps his arms around him without saying a word. Louis tenses up, so Niall just says “I had a bad dream” before Louis can refuse to be comforted like the stubborn arsehole he is. Louis relaxes in his grip and inhales deeply on his cigarette.

“Want one?” Louis asks, waving the packet in Niall’s vague direction as he looks straight ahead of him into the fog and darkness. Niall rolls his eyes.

“What do you think? It’s a fucking awful habit, Lou.”

Louis shrugs and blows a wisp of smoke into the air above their heads.

“Which one?”

Niall can’t help but smile, because he knows it’s the closest he’ll get to a ‘ _thank you for_ _this_ ’ from Louis. He gets a block of chocolate out of the pocket in his pyjama trousers and passes it to Louis wordlessly. Niall’s taken to hiding his blocks of chocolate in his pants when Zayn’s in one of his ‘Afghan weed’ phases. It’s the first time in his life that the ball-freezing weather in the UK has been a true blessing. Niall doesn’t like parting with chocolate at the best of times, but he feels like Louis needs it more than he does.

Louis looks at the chocolate for a moment like he’s going to tell Niall to go fuck himself, then he sighs and takes it. Niall watches as Louis tears the wrapper open and bites into the chocolate like he’s trying to fill up something inside him. Niall looks away. He watches the stars and wonders how dumb it would be to wish on one of them for everyone to work their shit out. Even just enough for Louis to get that bright light back in his eyes when he’s around Harry. Niall thinks he could work with that.

Louis turns to him when he’s finished half of the block.

“What did you dream about?”

Niall thinks for a moment and then gives it his best shot.

“I dreamt that I was losing someone I loved. Or I thought I was losing them. I was walking in circles trying to find them, but every time I turned a corner they were there with someone else. But it was just a dream, you know? Things aren’t always like that. The way they look, I mean.”

Louis sucks in smoke and coughs. His throat sounds sore.

“Funny dream. I didn’t know you and Barbara were so close.”

Niall wants to strangle him. _I know you’re hurting, you idiotic, stubborn ass_ , he wants to say, but then Louis turns to face him head on for the first time that night. The skin around Louis’s eyes is pink and a few tears have left wet streaks down his face. He looks straight into Niall’s eyes, and the frustrated voices in Niall’s head go quiet, because he understands the look for what it is. So he puts his head on Louis’s shoulder and listens to his heart pump while Louis finishes the rest of the chocolate. He doesn’t mind getting jostled by Louis’s collar bone every few seconds as he chews. Niall just feels glad to be here with him.

*

Louis is already wondering what he did to deserve this when he opens his eyes. His mouth tastes disgusting, like it always does the morning after he’s been smoking, and Liam is trying to rap again.

“Do _not_ ,” Louis mutters darkly as he rolls himself out of his bunk. Louis feels that this expresses his views on Liam’s rapping more than adequately, and that Liam should have the decency to stop, but Liam’s mood is offensively undampened. Louis scowls.

The weirdest thing about it is that he’s fairly sure that Liam is rapping the girl parts of the song. Louis shoots an accusing look at Zayn as Liam belts out the lyric ‘ _On and off the dick, better known for breaking hearts_.’ Louis has a feeling that Liam hasn’t properly thought out what ‘on and off the dick’ means. He also has a feeling that Zayn knows _exactly_ what it means and has deliberately taught it to Liam. Zayn suddenly looks very interested in his socks.

Louis doesn’t think it’s possible for his morning to get any worse, until he makes the grievous error in judgement of bending over in front of Liam and Niall to put on his pants. He looks up in time to see the two of them exchange glances before simultaneously bursting into a loud rendition of ‘Baby Got Back’. What Louis finds most offensive about it is how polished their performance is.

“Do you twats practice this in front of the mirror?” he asks with an incredulous glare as Liam and Niall fall respectfully silent for Zayn to do the ‘ _makes me so horny_ ’ line. Harry comes in brushing his teeth just in time to harmonise with Zayn on the moan before his entire band yells ‘’ _til the break of DAWN_ ’. Harry manages to accidentally spit toothpaste down his front and Louis _still_ gets half a hard-on from his moaning. Louis feels like getting up in the first place was an incredibly poor decision.

Louis’s misgivings about getting out of bed today are confirmed when Paul drops off a large box of fan mail for Harry while they’re eating lunch. Most of them have given up trying to answer their massive amounts of fan mail. They just don’t have time, and it gets disheartening to write out four replies and then be so pressed for time that you need to leave four thousand unanswered.

Zayn still reads a few here and there, usually when he’s smoking up. Sometimes he looks up from a letter or a drawing with an intense look in his eyes and murmurs something like ‘I’m so touched, man’, and then spends several days concentrating on drawing that fan an original artwork. His determination to put these responses in a post box himself has put everyone on their staff out at least once. He never signs them, and always insists on sending them anonymously, which baffles and exasperates Louis more than anything else about Zayn. And Zayn’s set the bar for that _quite_ high.

“You know they’d be _fifty times_ as thrilled to get something with four words from you on it,” Louis had pointed out once, but Zayn just shook his head stubbornly.

“I don’t want them to like it just because it’s _me_. I hope they find something of _value_ in it besides that, you know? I want to really give something _back_.”

Louis had thought that the only thing more stupid than what had just come out of Zayn’s mouth was the way that Liam had looked at him when he said it. A few weeks later he’d found Liam writing a letter in his bunk while the others were at an interview. The curtain of his bunk had been closed, but Louis had chosen to disregard that because he’d felt the urge to pester Liam about something. Louis forgets what it was now, but it was probably the pestering itself that was central to his purposes.

Louis wasn’t sure if it was the speed at which he’d burst through the curtains or Liam’s desire not to crumple his letter which prevented Liam from hiding it in time. His letter was addressed ‘Dear Zayn’, and he’d obviously been trying to disguise his handwriting. Louis was about to absolutely go to town with mocking him, but something about the way Liam had dropped his head down and braced his whole body for his words had stopped him short. In the end he’d just told him that the t’s still looked like his and left it.

Louis doesn’t really understand what’s wrong with Liam, but he hopes in spite of himself that his letter finds Zayn. Harry is the only one of them who still reads a lot of stuff from fans. He’s still adamant that fan mail be dropped off to him as often as possible. The rest of them try to give back to the fans in other ways, but Louis doesn’t always feel like he’s doing enough. He often finds Harry where he’s fallen asleep among a pile of letters and pictures on the floor. Louis always blinks at him for a moment, looking at his soft eyelashes on his skin and trying not to be so amazed by him.

And sometimes, Louis presses a kiss into his neck while he’s still asleep and softly prises his pen from his grip. Harry’s eyes always flutter open then, because his fingers are always curled so tightly around the pen, like he’s determined to finish replying even if he needs to be up all night trying. So Louis picks up his pen and leans over his shoulder and writes the last few lines for him, pushing aside the feeling in his chest as Harry sleepily murmurs “That’s good, Lou”. They haven’t had time alone for even that, lately. Louis tells himself that he doesn’t miss it all that much.

The first thing Harry opens now as they sit around the bench eating isn’t a letter. Security is pretty strict about them opening parcels from fans, but every now and then one ends up in front of them. Louis has his suspicions that Paul filters them through for his own personal amusement. The flimsy butterfly crop top that Harry unfolds from his parcel does less than nothing to convince him of Paul’s innocence in this matter.

“Hey, it’s a top with my tattoo on it!” Harry sounds genuinely thrilled, but then Harry is always genuinely thrilled by gifts. A five-year-old who was clearly completely in awe of him had once wordlessly passed Harry some lint from her pocket, and he’d spent the whole afternoon telling Louis how sweet he thought ‘the gesture’ was. “She didn’t even have anything that really belonged to her and she still tried to give me something,” Harry had enthused, his eyes shining with emotion. Louis sincerely hopes that he doesn’t still have that lint.

“Try it on,” Liam says, smirking and raising his eyebrows at Zayn, but Harry is already pulling his shirt over his head. Somewhere between getting a flash of pink from Harry’s nipples under the ludicrously thin fabric of the crop top and _someone_ putting on The Pussycat Dolls, Louis concludes that this is definitely going to be the worst lunch he’s experienced for some time. Liam is lip-synching Snoop Dogg’s rap from the opening of ‘Buttons’, dancing up behind Harry and tugging at the crop top, and Harry laughs and tries to dance. Zayn licks his lips lewdly as Harry drops his hips and tosses his curls out of his eyes with a grin. Louis is so busy trying not to look as Harry’s stomach muscles flex under his butterfly tattoo when he thrusts his torso forward that he kicks the bench and stubs his toe. Niall looks appalled by everything.

Harry dances toward Louis, thrusting his hips and mouthing ‘ _I’m telling you to loosen up my buttons babe, but you keep fronting, saying what you gon’ do to me, but I ain’t seen nothing’_ as Zayn strokes a hand down his torso and Liam checks out his arse.

“You don’t have any buttons, arsehole,” Louis mutters.

“Aaw, that’s a bit rough, Louis,” Liam teases gently.

“I’m with Louis on this one,” Niall says. “I’m trying to eat spaghetti. I’m not participating in whatever’s going on here.” He gives the butterfly print on the crop top an emphatic look of disapproval and holds his spaghetti closer.

Zayn’s fingers are wrapping around Harry’s hip now, digging into the bare skin just above his tight black jeans and making it turn pink. Both of Liam’s hands have found Harry’s waist, squeezing just enough that Louis thinks about Liam bending Harry over, and Louis flushes, but not for the reason that he should. Louis never thought he’d wish so hard that he just felt turned on. Louis doesn’t want to admit what the strange clawing feeling in his throat is because he’s never coped with it that well. Louis swallows and has to look away as Harry thrusts back into Liam and Zayn’s fingernails graze Harry’s skin.

Louis’s face feels so hot that he thinks it’s a wonder he doesn’t faint. _Fuck_ , he thinks, because he almost wishes he would, because he would almost rather faint on the floor than watch Harry’s eyelids fluttering in front of him from the feeling of other people’s hands all over him. Louis tries to make himself look at Harry, and Harry’s pink lips part in his peripheral vision as he circles his hips into Zayn’s fingers. Louis puts his bowl down on the bench more forcefully than he’d intended to, gets up and mutters something about going for a walk. _Fuck, Louis. Fuck._

Louis doesn’t come back to the trailer until he’s spent a good forty minutes smoking cigarettes with shaky fingers and telling himself to pull his shit together. When he does, Liam and Harry are alone, and Harry is pressed against the wall getting fucked to the tune of ‘Don’t Cha’. He’s still wearing the fucking crop top. The butterfly inked on his bare stomach and the one printed on the soft fabric seem to shiver together as he breathes in tiny gasps and his fingers scrabble helplessly against the wall. Harry’s long legs are wrapped around Liam, and Louis’s breath comes faster when Liam’s fingers stroke up Harry’s thigh as he breathes out a laugh at the lyric ‘ _Don’t you wish your girlfriend was a freak like me_ ’.

Louis doesn’t know what arsehole has this entire album on their iPhone, but he’s going to do something about it. Louis takes a step toward the bunks and Liam turns to look at him.

“Louis, can you pass me your phone? I want to record this for posterity.”

Louis smiles sweetly and throws his phone at Liam’s head. It’s the best feeling he’s had all day, but Harry even has to ruin that by clutching at Liam’s neck and letting out a yelp which stutters into a moan as Liam almost drops him ducking and then thrusts up hard again to break his fall.

Louis feels tired when they perform that night. His body feels like it’s going through the motions without him really being present. It makes him feel like an arsehole as he looks at the screaming, shining faces of their fans, but all he can focus on is Harry throwing himself around like a rag doll, glittering with sweat under the lights and looking breathlessly out at the crowd like he’d tear himself open for every person there.

By the time Louis gets into bed, he’s just relieved to be there. He curls on his side and collapses, pulling his arms close to his chest and closing his eyes and listening to Harry gush about the concert. And Louis’s too tired to give a fuck that it’s the sound of Harry’s voice that lulls him to sleep.

It’s Harry’s voice that wakes him up again. It’s still dark, and Louis’s so tired, and it’s just a mumbled “Fuck” coming from the kitchen, but Louis’s eyes fly open anyway. Louis lies still for a minute. He listens to the steady breathing of the others in their bunks, and wonders if Harry’s alright. He sighs and heaves his legs out of his bunk, drops lightly to the floor, and goes quietly into the other room. Louis blinks in the white light shining on his face from the kitchen and tries to focus. When he adjusts from the darkness, he sees Harry, naked by the fridge holding a spoon and a can of something and trying to rub something off his chest. Louis walks closer and works out what Harry’s holding. He sighs. Louis’s life is hard.

“Harry,” Louis says flatly. “Harry, that’s condensed milk. Rubbing it isn’t clever. If you rub it you’ll just sort of spread the stickiness around.” Louis thinks that Harry Styles is possibly the only person he knows who could manage to spill condensed milk on their own chest. The stuff is so thick that it moves slower than Zayn’s eyelashes when he’s blazed.

Harry starts at Louis’s voice and looks up at him with a flush and a sheepish smile, licking instinctively at some condensed milk at the corner of his lips.

“Sorry I woke you up, Lou. I was hungry.”

Harry’s skin looks golden under the pale kitchen light. Louis reaches out and runs a hand down Harry’s arm, watching the way that the gold skin turns to goose bumps at his touch. Harry turns towards him as Louis takes the spoon out of his hand and dips it into the can of condensed milk. Harry’s breath is warm and sweet on his face as Louis twists the spoon in the thick substance and puts a large spoonful in his mouth. He’s so far into Harry’s personal space now that he can smell the condensed milk on his breath, but Louis doesn’t care.

He tilts his head back and looks into Harry’s eyes as he swallows, licking his lips and then spooning more condensed milk into his mouth. Harry’s warm hand comes up to the back of his neck and Harry leans down and closes his mouth on his. Louis doesn’t swallow for him, making Harry lick the thick, sugary substance out of his mouth. Harry’s not complaining at all, moaning as Louis grabs his curls and thrusts his tongue into his mouth. It’s messy as fuck; their mouths and their jaws are streaked and sticky with sugar and a shudder runs through Louis’s body as Harry gasps and a thin line of condensed milk leaks from the corner of his mouth.

He looks so good that Louis cock starts to fill inside the soft fabric of his pants. He tightens his fingers in Harry’s curls and pulls them, bringing Harry’s ear down to his lips.

“Would you like me to fuck you?” he whispers, licking at the streak of condensed milk that’s run down Harry’s throat. Harry exhales and closes his eyes.

“I want to, but I’m tired, Lou. Tomorrow, I promise.” Harry sounds so guilty that Louis flushes, realising that he’s been treating Harry’s body like his own personal theme park, and one that never closes.

“Oh, don’t worry about it,” Louis tells him. He tries desperately not to let Harry down by sounding disappointed, and ends up sounding condescending and bored. Harry flushes and looks at the floor. Harry looks downcast, and Louis feels like hurling himself into a brick wall as he turns to go back to bed.

“That doesn’t mean you have to go.”

Harry’s voice is low but strong, and Louis turns around. He looks at Harry with his eyebrows raised, giving him a questioning look and trying not to look as fucking idiotic and _vulnerable_ as he feels.

“Come on, Lou,” Harry says. He’s flushing more as he slowly puts the words together, looking down at his hands and then up at Louis. “You don’t have to go away just because we’re not shagging. We used to do stuff before that. Together.” Harry looks up at him from under heavy lashes and says, “I just miss that.”

Louis has to remember to blink as he looks at Harry, standing there naked and gorgeous in the middle of the night with condensed milk shining on his chest, shivering and telling Louis that he misses him, like all of that is just normal and like that last part isn’t hard to admit at all.

Harry clears his throat.

“Sorry that I woke you.”

He looks embarrassed but his gaze is steady on Louis’s, not giving up. Louis wants to yell at him that it’s more complicated than that, and he wants to crush their lips together until it hurts. Louis doesn’t let go enough to do either of those things. When he tries to, he feels like throwing up. He tries to get one deep breath into his chest and sucks in cold air too fast. It hurts his lips and his lungs, like he’s sucked some fragile thing deeper inside of him. Louis feels like it’s a metaphor for something, but he can’t think about it now, because Harry is shivering in front of him looking into his eyes like he needs _something_ tonight. He steps toward Harry and pulls his soft tee over his head.

“Here,” Louis holds his top out for Harry. “You look cold.” Louis presses the top into Harry’s open palms, but Harry just holds it and looks at Louis with wide eyes, like he thinks it might be a trick. Louis bites his lip. “You can hold onto that one if you want.” Louis shivers and tries to shrug. “It’ll smell like me for a while. If you still like that.”

A vein throbs in Harry’s jaw as his fingers close tightly around the fabric of the t-shirt, and Louis’s chest deflates. He thinks he must have said something wrong, until Harry throws his arms around his shoulders.

“I’m going to kiss you for a long time now,” Harry says. His voice is hoarse as he leans back and looks at Louis. “Is that okay, Lou?”

“You’re weird,” Louis tells him softly as he leans in and closes his eyes, but what he thinks is ‘ _Just this once_.’

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hello 
> 
> [Sugarhill Park @ Tumblr](https://sugarhillpark.tumblr.com/)


	7. Chapter 7

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey lovely reading people, here's another (fairly late) update! The updates are going to get further apart now as this marks the last of the material from years ago and next chapter will mark the start of recently written chapters, marking a sort of Part 2 of this fic. Hopefully you like the new parts and hopefully you like this one. 😊

Harry asks to room with Louis at their hotel in Wellington. Niall had already asked not to share this time, because Barbara Palvin had flown in from the UK to ‘hang out’ with him. Louis thinks that Niall’s idea of being single is getting pretty suspect.

Louis had decided it was best for him not to ask to room with Harry tonight. Louis doesn’t really think that he should be anywhere near Harry, because thinking about Harry lifting him onto the bench and kissing him for an hour last night, threading his fingers in his hair and murmuring that he tasted so good, is still making his skin tingle. Louis can’t get the taste of condensed milk out of his mouth, and he can’t believe he gave into some stupid, sentimental impulse in the middle of the night that isn’t doing anyone any good.

Liam had walked in on them kissing at two in the morning, looked at the condensed milk spilt all over the floor, raised his eyebrows and said “Okay then guys,” before yawning and going back to bed. Harry had turned his head to look at Liam, blinking sleepily as his fingers wrapped tighter around Louis’s bare arm, like he was worried that someone was trying to take him away. He was cleaning up the condensed milk in the kitchen when Louis went to get coffee in the morning. Harry had looked up at Louis from his hands and knees on the floor, and when he smiled, his eyes were shining.

Louis had worried at his lip all morning, feeling guilty as Harry wandered around fucking shining at him like a star every time he looked over, because Harry’s been single for so long, and it should be another beautiful model he’s lighting up for, not an old t-shirt from his best friend. Louis feels shitty for giving him the shirt in the first place, because Harry always chooses what he wears so carefully. Louis’s barely ever washed that shirt, and it’s going to be too tight across the chest. The chest with the heart that was thudding against his last night, and Louis’s trying not to remember how that felt.

Louis had taken a long time to get to sleep when they went back to bed last night. He lay in his bunk with his heart pumping like he was high, looking wide-eyed at the ceiling and wondering what the fuck he’d figured Harry would do with his worn t-shirt. What the fuck he’d even wanted him to do, if he couldn’t really wear it. _Do you want him to jerk off with it? Sleep with it? Your best friend?_ And Louis felt scared, because he couldn’t work out how to answer his own questions: because when he turned to look over at Harry, he was asleep on his side, with his face and his hands buried in the frayed fabric of Louis’s t-shirt.

When Harry asks to room with him, Louis is trying to distract himself from the questions still throbbing inside his head by hiding a vibrator in Niall’s suitcase while everyone else is busy getting their room keys from Paul. It’d been thrown on stage at their last show, and Louis personally couldn’t think of a more promising time to put a vibrator in Niall’s bag than when he was about to be alone with a girl he wanted to impress. Harry’s voice catches him off guard, and his fingers are clumsy for a second as he tries to close the bag. Louis turns and straightens up just as the other members of his band turn to look at him.

Zayn and Liam look surprised, but not annoyed in the slightest. They’re looking at Louis expectantly, and Louis knows he should say something about how he’s tired and won’t be any fun, something to extricate himself from another guilty mistake, but Harry’s gaze on him is nervous and hopeful, and Louis just shrugs and goes to him. Niall is holding a crêpe and looking unreasonably pleased about something. Louis’s only consolation as he gets into the elevator with Harry close beside him is remembering his handiwork and thinking ‘ _Not for long, Niall_ ’.

Louis doesn’t know what to do with himself when they get into their hotel room. He remembers the last time that he got Harry alone in a hotel room, remembers Harry pushing him against the door the moment that it closed, all breathy and heat-soaked already as he moaned into Louis’s mouth, and how Harry had gasped and slipped as Louis fucked him over the kitchen bench, because they couldn’t make it to the sofa. And a second later, Louis remembers sharing a hotel in this city with Harry a long time ago, climbing into his bed drunk and excited and so fucking nervous about their success. He remembers Harry, just as drunk as he was, shyly wrapping his fingers around his as he murmured “You look so good, Lou.”

Harry is looking at him now from under heavy lashes, silently asking what Louis wants from him, like he always does these days. He looks about a foot taller than he was then, and even more beautiful. Louis flushes, looks away and asks dully if Harry wants to watch TV.

It doesn’t take long for Louis to realise that TV wasn’t the best choice of diversion. They’re both on one of the double beds, propped up on their elbows as they channel surf and watch the big screen in front of it. Harry looks like he’s bored and trying to hide it, though he can’t suppress a yawn as he stretches and props himself up on his hands. Louis stares fixedly into the home-shopping network, determinedly pretending that an infomercial for some type of blender is more interesting than the way that Harry’s t-shirt rides up when he stretches.

And Louis feels awkward in his own skin, because once upon a time they would’ve been wrestling on the bed when they were alone, or lying with their legs draped over each other, but they’re a clean metre away from each other now on a small bed. Louis feels so _stupid_ , because when he thinks about lying on hotel beds with Harry two years ago, imitating Simon while Harry tried not to giggle, or listening to Harry slowly tell him a story, eyelashes fluttering while he played with Louis’s hair, the silence in their hotel room makes his chest fucking ache.

Louis remembers too late that expensive hotel rooms with every channel that hoteliers think One Direction could possibly want mean that there’s going to be porn. He flushes when the TV is suddenly full of an extreme close-up of a wet pussy, and almost pulls a muscle trying to just sit _still_ , because if he switched channels too fast it would look weird, and Louis doesn’t want to look like he’s being weird about pussy right now. Louis can feel his eyes glazing as he watches the women on the screen finger each other and whine for his viewing pleasure. His spine feels rigid as he tries to remind himself that watching porn is what lads do with each other, sometimes. He tries to shrug it out and get into it, but all he can think about is that one of the porn stars looks kind of like Caroline Flack. Louis wonders if Harry’s into that.

Louis feels like he probably has a weird expression on his face, because Harry looks flushed and uncomfortable beside him.

“The brunette is pretty fit,” he says uselessly, and Harry turns towards him just slightly.

“Yeah,” Harry breathes softly, and he shifts on the bed so that his arm is just brushing against Louis’s.

Louis moves his arm away and turns the TV off, nervously pushing his fingers through his hair and desperately wracking his brain for something to say which isn’t ‘ _I want to hold you down on the bed and look into your eyes while I fuck you slowly so much it’s fucking done my head in’_.

“Do you fancy a game of Scrabble?” he asks, because he remembers in the nick of time that he’s got a mini-set in his suitcase, and Louis’s pretty sure that neither of them will manage to interpret it as foreplay. Harry raises his eyebrows, and then smiles like that’s the sweetest thing anyone’s ever asked him.

“Yeah. I’d like that.”

They set up with a bottle of wine from the mini-bar and some glasses on the floor in the lounge so that they can play music through the expensive-looking sound system. Harry puts on ‘Dead Flowers’ by the Rolling Stones and sings along to bits and pieces as he moves his letters around. Louis thinks that his voice is actually _more_ gorgeous when he’s unguarded like that, not performing for anyone, just laying on the floor with his eyes brightening as he remembers a favourite part of the song. His hair has fallen over his shoulder on one side in a soft, ridiculous tumble of curls, and Louis keeps getting distracted from the game by the Mick Jagger glow he has going on. He’s still beating Harry by a landslide for most of the game, because Harry is just singing and playing four letter words.

Harry looks so focused and determined as he looks at the Scrabble board that Louis feels sorry for him and starts trying to do _worse_ , until Harry finally manages to make ‘banana’, and Louis realises that must have been his plan all along. Louis looks at the board incredulously as Harry gives him a winsome grin. He feels like the universe is laughing at him.

Louis can’t even believe Harry managed to get that many a’s, because in the past the Scrabble board has generally been taken out when Louis’s feeling drunk and uncooperative, because that’s when he’s inclined to use the letters to make passive-aggressive messages. Glue-gunning ‘DICKHEAD’ to one of Liam’s snapbacks with a glue gun he found backstage following a minor argument is the shining pinnacle of Louis’s efforts on that front. He’s pretty sure that Niall actually swallowed the letters of ‘cock’ as a result of one of their drunken bets that got out of hand. It’s sort of a wonder that there are any letters left at all.

Harry has the last turn, getting rid of most of his letters with ‘girls’. Louis blinks at the board, trying to think of an innocuous conversation starter, and manages to blurt out the first thing on his mind instead. 

“What’s it like with girls?”

Harry looks up at him slowly, his lashes heavy and half-hidden under thick curls.

“What do you mean ‘with girls’?”

Louis quickly picks up his wine glass and swallows a large mouthful.

“When you fuck them. What’s it like _fucking_ them?”

Harry looks at Louis with wide-eyes for a moment, flushing a little as he chews on his lip.

“It’s nice…” he says with an awkward shrug, and then he gets a tiny smile on his face. “I thought you’d been with girls, Louis.”

And Louis knows he’s just teasing him about his stupid question, and in the shyest, gentlest way possible, but it hits a nerve.

“Oh, I just thought what with everyone saying you fuck four girls a week and all you’d feel a little more strongly about fucking them than ‘nice’.”

“I don’t-” Harry stammers. “It’s not…” His face is bright pink and he looks hurt as he gives up and just mumbles, “I always use condoms.”

“Oh, that’s good. It would’ve been pretty awkward for us as a group if you’d knocked up Caroline Flack.” Harry is looking at him like Louis’s just hit him, and Louis _wants_ to shut the fuck up, but all the jealousy and frustration and _hurt_ that he doesn’t want to admit he’s felt for months just keeps pouring out of him as he goads, “Come on, she was thirty-two, what was shagging _her_ like?”

Harry is still flushed and looking at the carpet as he answers, but his voice comes out deep and strong.

“It was like having sex with _her_. It meant…what it meant then. And I don’t think that she’d think it was great if I talked to you about it now like that was nothing and I don’t respect her anymore.” Harry slowly raises his head to look at Louis. His eyes are dark and there’s something about his expression as their eyes meet that’s warm and almost pleading at the same time. “It was more than two years ago, Lou.”

Louis finishes his glass and pours another, looking over at the window in silent frustration. He wonders if he’s the only one who remembers too much about their lives more than two years ago. He remembers how Caroline’s perfume smelt on Harry’s body when he came home from her place. It was nice perfume, and Louis remembers trying to find a reason why he wanted to shove Harry into the shower until his skin was damp and scrubbed pink and clean.

“What’s it like with Eleanor?” Harry asks quietly.

Louis gives Harry a disbelieving look, not trying to hide the bitterness from it as much as he knows he should. Harry bites his lip and looks away.

“I just thought-”

“That you would never tell me about fucking someone more than two years ago but it would be completely _fine_ to ask me about my _girlfriend_?” Louis snaps. “It’s completely fucking different. I’m with her _now_. And she’s your friend. Jesus, do you ask all your friends how they like _getting off_ with your other friends?”

“We haven’t had that much time to be friends, Lou,” Harry says softly. “I mean, you just…spend time with us…separately.” Hs eyes flicker and then he looks down. “Even when we’re both around.” Harry’s shoulders are hunching in on themselves, making his collar bones stick out until he looks more fragile than he really is. His brow is furrowed and his last words are quiet. And he doesn’t say ‘ _You keep us apart’_ , or ‘ _You put her first’_ , but Louis suddenly feels on the verge of tears.

Harry looks up at Louis, parts his lips as if to say something more, then looks down and fidgets nervously with the hem of his shirt. He huffs out a sigh, stills for a moment, and then says in a voice so quiet that it’s almost a whisper, “Girlfriend?”

Louis looks at him like he’s dense.

“Eleanor? Slight, pretty, you might’ve seen her about kissing me for several years? The one you were just asking me about screwing? Sounding familiar yet?”

Harry flinches.

“I didn’t think you were together at the moment,” he mumbles.

Louis runs his hand through his hair, making an exasperated gesture and trying to look chilled out as his heart starts pounding so hard he wonders why it’s not visible through his skin.

“Come on, you know how it is. If I stopped calling her my girlfriend every time we broke up the fans who give her shit would just do it more.”

“I’m not those fans,” Harry says softly.

“I’m not cheating on her with you, if that’s what you’re worried about,” Louis tells him. “I would never do that to her.”

Harry exhales loudly and lets his hair fall over his eyes. His shoulders are so close to his chest that it looks like he wants to fold himself in half. Louis wants to hold him, but he just looks down at his own fingers, fanning out and stretching on the carpet as if they’re on Harry’s skin.

“Hey,” Louis says after a moment. “What’s wrong, sunshine?” Louis manages a tight smile, but Harry looks up at him with something sore in his eyes.

“Don’t make fun of me.”

Harry looks exposed and raw and beautiful as he glares into Louis’s eyes. His chest rises and falls heavily, his eyes reproachful as he watches Louis come closer, but he doesn’t back away. Louis doesn’t even feel himself moving until he puts his hand on Harry’s thigh. He gets goose bumps up his arm and a shiver runs through his body, and then it’s like his veins start _working_ again, because he’s never been alone with Harry for this long without touching him since they met _four fucking years ago_.

Harry doesn’t lean away as Louis looks up at him from inches under his face, widening his blue eyes for him and trying to think of some lie to tell about why he’s failed to keep his shit together tonight. He tilts his lips closer to Harry’s, eyelashes fluttering as he just whispers “Shut me up, then.”

Harry’s breath rushes over his lips.

“Lou-”

“Why did you want to room with me tonight?” Louis cuts in, and something challenging flashes in Harry’s eyes.

“Why did _you_ want to play Scrabble?”

They knock the wine bottle over as their bodies connect, their chests crushed against each other and their fists bunched in the fabric of each other’s shirts. Harry is stronger, and he gets Louis on his back within four seconds. Louis sucks on his bottom lip hard, biting down until Harry pulls his hair to force him to stop. Harry’s fingernails jab into the soft flesh of Louis’s stomach as he blindly wrenches at his belt, and Louis doesn’t care that it hurts. He doesn’t care about the Scrabble letters digging into his spine, or the red wine soaking into his shirt and the hotel carpet. Louis doesn’t even care that he’s giving in, or that Harry isn’t letting him breathe, because his fingers are on Harry’s skin now, fanning out and stretching and _digging in_ , and Louis wants to lie on his back underneath him forever.

Harry pulls his jeans open, shoving Louis’s body up roughly as he lowers his head to his pelvic bone and sucks. Louis pulls his hair viciously; he wants Harry to leave a bruise that lasts for a month. Harry bites down and Louis’s eyes tear up as he arches. He whines at how _wet_ his bruising skin is as Harry lets go. He looks up at Louis, eyes dark and intent on his as he slowly wipes his mouth.

“Suck me off,” Louis breathes, tightening his fist in Harry’s hair and twisting so Harry can’t move away. Harry makes a sound that’s somewhere between a moan and a hiss as he flushes in Louis’s grip. He reaches back with one arm for a condom from his pants, braced on one arm and bowed forward by Louis’s fist in his hair.

“Want to know what it’s like with _you_?” Harry asks in a low, throaty murmur as he looks into Louis’s eyes and tears the condom packet open.

“I want to know what it’s like in your _throat_ ,” Louis tells him, thrusting his hips up as Harry roughly strokes his cock. Harry licks his lips and lowers his head over Louis’s cock. He’s still looking up at Louis, eyes almost black as he strokes the condom up and down on Louis’s cock.

“It’s like all my dreams came true,” Harry drawls, and Louis moans as Harry _squeezes_. Harry opens his mouth wide and lowers it so that Louis can feel the moisture from his breath on his cock. “Go ahead. Take what I promised you last night.”

Louis thrusts into his throat.

Harry gags, but he doesn’t try to pull away, even when Louis lets go of his hair and pulls out just enough to feel Harry’s throat constrict as he thrusts back in again. Harry tries to keep his eyes open as Louis uses his throat, and watching his eyelids get heavy and his eyes glaze makes Louis moan more than the soaking heat of his mouth.

“Fuck, you’ve got the prettiest mouth,” Louis moans. Harry shudders, and Louis’s pulse jumps as he feels it through the wet lips on his cock. Louis’s eyes flutter closed as he tries to control his breathing, but Harry presses his fingers softly against his arse and his eyes fly open as his whole frame arches. His phone in his pocket digs into him as his weight shifts, and Louis whines in frustration as he stretches for it. His fingers close around his phone just as Harry pulls off his cock with his lips dripping. Louis stills.

“I want to film you,” he whispers.

Harry’s eyes have teared up from gagging, and a fat tear runs down his jaw. Harry licks it away and blinks slowly at Louis, lips parted and brushing against his cock. Simon’s lectured them all a thousand times about the stupidity of filming any sexual encounters ‘in their position’, but Harry doesn’t look like he gives much of a fuck about what position he’s in as he looks up at Louis with saliva streaked on his jaw.

“Turn your phone on.”

Louis feels breathless as he puts his phone on video and focuses on Harry’s flushed face.

Harry’s lips wrap wetly around the head of his cock, and he turns his head as he lowers it, so Louis can feel his lips and his tongue corkscrewing around his cock. Harry shifts the angle of his lips and his neck every time he goes down, never letting the tip of Louis’s cock out of his lips. He only takes half of it inside them at first, going slowly and pushing his hair away from his face so it doesn’t impede Louis’s view of his cock disappearing inside him over and over again. Louis is propped up on his elbows and the arm holding his phone is starting to shake. He tells himself it’s because of the awkward angle and the overwhelming pleasure shooting up his nerves as Harry’s tongue slides around his cock, not because of Harry’s wet eyes locked on his.

Louis fists his fingers in Harry’s hair and pulls. Harry comes off Louis’s cock with a breathy whine, like he doesn’t want to let it go.

“Do you want me to beg you for it?” Harry asks softly, eyes darkening. “Or do you just want to pull my hair more?” Louis pulls Harry’s hair back until his throat is forced into the prettiest arch that Louis’s ever seen. Harry lets out a breathy laugh, and Louis can see his pulse pumping quickly in his neck like a fucking wet butterfly uselessly beating its wings. “God, your cock looks so good, Lou.” Harry’s eyelashes are heavy and damp as he touches it and then sucks the tips of his fingers into his mouth. Louis lets go of his hair and Harry rubs his face on his cock, sighing and closing his eyes as it rubs over his open lips. He wraps his fingers around it and rubs the head around his lips until they’re shining from the lubricated condom and his own spit, and Louis arches his back and looks down at him breathlessly.

And Louis wishes he felt braver, because it’s impossible to tell if Harry just loves sucking cock or if he’s just putting it on for the camera, and Louis’s never felt this insecure. ‘ _Don’t_ ,’ he wants to tell him, ‘ _Just be you_ ,’ but then Harry looks up at him with uncertainty in his eyes.

“Come on, Lou.” His breath whispers over the wet skin on Louis’s cock, and Louis shivers. “I want to look good for you. I don’t know…you need to tell me what you’d want to watch.”

Louis feels hysterical laughter surge up in his chest until his shoulders almost shake from holding it in, because the beautiful boy lying down for him on the hotel floor, with a hundred thousand fans who would beg for him to just look at them once, is worried Louis won’t like his video. And Louis thinks he’s not as different from all those fans he’s never met as they might think, because if Harry filmed himself fucking _folding his laundry_ for Louis, Louis would still never delete it. Louis feels like he’s choking as he thinks, ‘ _You. I want to watch you. You with me, all over me, underneath me, inside me._ ’ He wriggles nervously and licks his lips.

“I wouldn’t turn you down if you wanted to film us snogging.” Louis crosses his fingers internally, bites his lip and leans back, trying to look nonchalant and alluring and not as desperate as he feels. Harry flushes such a deep, bruised pink that Louis is amazed to look down and find his cock still flushed and stiff in his lap.

“ _Oh_.”

“Well I won’t object if you’d prefer to get on with blowing –” Louis begins, but all of a sudden Harry is crowding him, his chest warm against Louis’s as he tugs his shirt off and takes the phone from Louis’s hand.

“I have longer arms,” Harry murmurs, and then he extends his arm beside them as he gently threads his fingers in Louis’s hair. His eyes close as his mouth closes on Louis’s, and Louis’s are wide-open for a few seconds, his lips still as their heartbeats press into each other. Louis doesn’t know why he’s still so shocked by Harry’s softness with him, and how it good it feels, every fucking time. He lets his eyes flutter closed and returns the kiss, trying to pretend this will still feel so fucking good in the morning.

They kiss until Louis’s head is swimming because he isn’t getting enough air, or even trying to. Harry’s left arm is limp where he’s draped it over Louis’s shoulders, as his strength goes into holding his right arm where it is. Louis can feel his right shoulder starting to tremble, and he brings his fingers up to Harry’s face and holds him there, not caring how needy he must look on film as he wills Harry to hold on for a little bit longer. Louis sucks on Harry’s lips and moans until Harry climbs into his lap, pulling back at last with his chest heaving.

Harry’s hand curls around both of their cocks at the same time, and Louis feels faint as he wonders if Harry would’ve been able to do that, in this hotel years ago, that night they fell asleep with their fingers entwined, if Louis had asked him. Harry’s fingers had been bigger than his even then. Louis realises he always should have known that Harry would get so much taller and stronger than him. He thrusts into Harry’s hand, swallowing his guilt and thinking ‘ _In more ways than one’_.

Harry throws his head back, moaning as their cocks rub together and Louis’s fingers clamp down around the tattoos on his upper arm. His eyes are bright and shining as they fall back on Louis’s.

“You still want me to talk about sex?” he rasps, tossing his hair out of his eyes, and Louis’s body jerks, because Harry is this pretty mess in his lap, half-crying from deep throating his cock, his voice deep and _wrecked_ and holding Louis still like it did the first time he ever heard him sing. Harry’s mouth is close to Louis’s throat as he murmurs “You want me to talk about more than two years ago?”

Louis struggles weakly against Harry’s chest for a moment, a token gesture from the last part of him that isn’t drenched in the sound of Harry’s voice, before he just gives up and hopes that he comes before Harry makes him cry.

Harry’s voice is low in his throat as he strokes faster. “How about me in my bunk at the X Factor house, sticking four fingers in my mouth before I came because I was so afraid I’d say your name? How about me touching myself at night at our place, starting out thinking about girls and having them turn into you?” Harry moans as he adjusts his knees where they’re rubbing raw on the carpet. “God, when we were recording the next day, Lou. I just…I almost couldn’t look at you. I was so worried that you’d know.” Harry’s whole arm is trembling now, but he doesn’t lower the phone.

Louis’s hips are arching into Harry’s hand on every stroke, but the rest of him is frozen. His eyes are wide and filled with tears, because _fuck_ Harry for doing this to him now, when he’s pulling Louis over the edge with his fingers like clockwork, when they’re going to sleep alone in one room tonight, with nowhere else to go.

“I always thought you were more beautiful than Caroline.” Harry’s grip softens for a moment and his lips slide in a wet line across Louis’s neck. “Do you remember what I told you, when we were drunk at that bar the first time we came here?”

And Louis does remember, remembers Harry twirling him around and pulling him close and whispering in his ear. Louis’s been trying to forget it ever since the words left Harry’s mouth, because who the fuck _tells_ someone something like that, because if Louis’d ever told Eleanor anything like that she would’ve asked him if he needed a glass of water and a lie down, because Harry had never been high in his life then: because you’re _never_ supposed to just say that to your best friend.

‘ _I dreamt you had stars inside you._ ’

Harry’s voice is soft, still heavy with sex but shy, almost as though he can’t quite believe that he’s saying this, and Louis’s so close that he wants to sob.

“You light up my world like nobody else,” Harry half-sings, half-breathily-laughs, and it’s a joke, but Harry’s awkward, vulnerable little smile against Louis’s throat tears Louis’s chest open.

“ _Shut up_ , shut the fuck up,” Louis tells him, and Harry twists his wrist between them, watching with wet, heavy lashes as Louis cries out.

“I’m not going to stop loving you just because you think I’m a joke.”

Louis comes so hard he almost blacks out, and Harry moans into his shoulder and follows him. Louis’s fingers are digging into Harry’s arm for dear life, and he can feel the shudders wracking through Harry’s body, but Harry doesn’t drop Louis’s phone. He only lowers his arm when Louis shoves against his chest, ending the video and slowly putting the phone on the floor beside Louis.

Louis lays himself face down on the hotel floor and ends up laughing, thinking something in his head must be completely fucking shattered: because the floor is _shaking_.

*

Liam has just come out of the shower when the earthquake hits. He’s just walked out of the hotel bathroom with a towel around his waist, trying to look smooth and collected and like there is no possibility that he’s just jerked off in the shower thinking about Perrie and Zayn.

He’d felt such a strong need to get off as soon as he ended up alone with Zayn that he’d thought it was best to excuse himself from Zayn’s presence until he’d dealt with it. He’d tried thinking about a fan they’d seen outside the hotel as the jets poured over him. She’d had a top on with thin fabric which stretched over her well-proportioned breasts until it was almost sheer, and Liam knew it wasn’t exactly classy, jerking off over fans, when you didn’t even know how old they were, but he’d figured it was a lot classier than wanking over one of your best mates and his girlfriend while he was in the next room.

Liam had only been stroking his cock for about five minutes before Perrie’s bright blue eyes crept into his fantasies. He loves the way they get even brighter whenever she dances, and her sweet smell when she throws her arms around his neck when they haven’t seen each other for a while. He’d desperately tried to force his thoughts away from putting his fingers on her tiny waist, because Liam has no fucking idea what Zayn would do if he knew Liam sometimes thought about Perrie undressing him and climbing on top of him, and he intends to never find out. But then he’d thought about Perrie and Zayn snogging, and how her fingers press up under the back of Zayn’s shirt, exposing a few inches of Zayn’s skin, and then it was _all_ of Zayn’s skin, as he remembered Zayn laid out naked on his bunk, that night they got high after Louis and Harry had vanished, and then he was so gone.

Liam remembers that night more than he wants to admit. Liam was used to Zayn being stoned, but not as stoned as he was that night, because Zayn usually did that with Louis. He hadn’t been ready for Zayn leaning over and putting his hand on his face, his long eyelashes touching Liam’s for a moment as he shotgunned smoke into his mouth. Zayn had rubbed Liam’s back as he coughed, his fingers rubbing slowly into the muscles and his eyelashes fanning out as he smiled. Most of all, Liam hadn’t been ready for Zayn casually taking off his clothes and collapsing on Liam’s bunk.

“Come over here, Liam,” he’d said with a lazy smile, stretching his slender limbs in a languid, cat-like movement on Liam’s bed. Liam had tried really hard not stare at Zayn’s naked, golden skin as he laughed.

“That’s not your bed, mate.”

Zayn had just grinned, eyes dark as he pushed himself up on his hands.

“Nah, but I don’t wanna sleep in mine.”

Liam had tried to drag his eyes away from Zayn’s thighs.

“Come on, I’m gonna roll over and crush you.”

Zayn had thrust himself up off his hands, chest arcing forward before he landed on his palms and slowly crawled toward Liam.

“I don’t care. You’re always so _warm_. You can crush me, man.”

And Liam knew that Zayn was stoned out of his mind, and that he had no idea what effect he was having on him, but as he looked up at him through thick, black lashes on his hands and knees he looked so _raw_ that Liam wanted to throw him onto his back and crush his mouth and his chest and his thighs and his cock against his until the bed was soaked from their sweat and Zayn couldn’t remember his own name.

Liam had just gently pushed Zayn back onto the bed and coaxed him under the covers, his heart thumping in his ribcage and his cock swelling as Zayn relaxed into his arms and let Liam lay him on the bed where he wanted him.

Liam remembers the heat of Zayn’s lower back on his hand, and Zayn’s eyelashes against his throat, and the heat of Zayn’s fingers curling on his biceps. He remembers Zayn murmuring “Closer” as Liam carefully lay beside him on top of the covers. He remembers Zayn’s thigh rubbing against him, slowly and up and down, and if Zayn had felt Liam’s cock, hot and hard and painful inside his jeans, he must have been too tired to think anything of it as his movements pressed the length of it along his thigh over and over again.

Liam had thought he was going to cry by the time Zayn’s eyes finally closed. His cock was swollen and throbbing from Zayn’s affectionate rubbing, along with what felt like his heart, under the fine layer of sweat between the left side of his chest and Zayn’s palm, flattened against it. If there’s something harder to take your eyes away from than Zayn’s eyelashes resting on his face when he’s asleep, Liam hasn’t worked out what it is yet.

He also remembers waking up sweating in the middle of the night in Zayn’s bunk in a fit of the most acute paranoia he’s ever experienced. It’d occurred to Liam that Zayn had gone to bed so high that he probably wouldn’t remember what course of events could’ve lead to him ending up naked in Liam’s bed, and that just because Liam wasn’t also in the bed it wouldn’t necessarily make things look great. Liam had walked around in the dark, freaking out and trying to find Zayn’s pants, only to remember that Zayn had spilt an entire glass of Coke on himself when he was laughing at one of Liam’s jokes that night, and then just casually let it dry on his thigh.

Liam had given up on trying to find a clean pair of Zayn’s pants after stubbing his toe for the tenth time and taken off his own pants to give to Zayn. Zayn had made soft, murmuring sounds as Liam gently arranged his thighs so that he could work the jeans up them in the dark, but Liam’s eyes had adjusted enough that he could see that Zayn’s eyes were closed. Liam still hadn’t wanted Zayn to find him in his bunk in the morning, so he’d been lying down on the floor with his blankets when Zayn had talked in his sleep.

“Liam, I’m cold. Come to bed.”

Liam had looked over to find Zayn shivering under the covers. He’d walked over to Zayn and covered him with the blankets he’d taken from his bed, pulling them up over his chest and watching him until the shivers subsided.

Liam had ended up spending a night sleeping on the floor of their bunks, in briefs and a t-shirt, under what smelled like Niall’s hoodie. Liam is never smoking with Zayn again.

Zayn is sitting on one of the beds in their hotel now, texting with his legs crossed underneath him. He looks up as Liam steps out of the bathroom, his eyes bright as he smiles at him, and Liam feels like turning back around again and just locking himself in the bathroom and jerking off forever. He steps toward his bed for his clothes, and almost falls over as the floor _lurches_ under his feet.

Liam’s eyes fly to Zayn’s in abject horror. Zayn’s fingers have frozen over his phone, and he looks at Liam with wild eyes as the room trembles again and then _doesn’t stop._

And Liam’s first thought isn’t ‘ _I’m so going to die_ ’ or ‘ _Why did I have to be in a towel right now_ ’, it’s ‘ _Fuck, Zayn_ ’, because Liam’s pretty sure he was the only person who was listening and not subtly texting when they went through the earthquake drill with Paul, and he needs to stop Zayn from getting hurt.

His eyes fly around the room as Zayn looks over at him, still folded on his violently shuddering bed, and they fix on a large desk which looks like it’s nailed down. He rushes over to Zayn’s bed and grabs his arm, trying to shield him with his body as he pulls him over to the desk.

“We need to get under this.”

Zayn follows him wordlessly, pulling Liam down with him quickly as he gets under the desk. Liam doesn’t let go of his arm as the room around them jolts their bodies back and forth. All of Zayn’s shit is falling off the bed, but Zayn is looking at Liam’s eyes with an intensity that wrenches at Liam’s stomach, because Liam is trying to look calm and _fine_ for him, but all he can think about is that something is going to fall on Zayn and _break_ him.

And Liam needs _every fucking part_ of Zayn, and he doesn’t know what to _do_.

A beautiful glass necklace Zayn had bought for Perrie a few days ago falls out of his open suitcase as the suitcase is thrown off his bed, and it smashes into pieces on the floor. Liam’s chest aches, because Perrie should be the one here with Zayn, holding him and telling him it’s alright, because she never freaks out when something goes wrong like Liam does, she just determinedly works through it, setting her teeth and looking perfect the whole time. Liam tries not to think about how scared Zayn must be up in this shaking building without her. He knows that the building is designed to sway in earthquakes, but his mind is just yelling that if the ceiling or the floor cracks and goes they’re going to get crushed, and Zayn will never get to see Perrie again.

He tries to fling his arm over Zayn’s face to shield his eyes from the broken glass as it skitters all over the room, but Zayn’s reflexes are too quick, and he grabs Liam’s wrist in mid-air and then wraps their fingers tightly together. Zayn’s grip is so tight it’s already cutting off the circulation to his fingers, but Liam just gives him a tiny squeeze back.

“I’ll help you find her another one,” he tells him, and Zayn’s nervous, breathy laughter makes Liam’s spine tingle.

“Thank you,” Zayn whispers, looking up at Liam’s eyes with an expression that’s so bloody solemn and beautiful that Liam’s stomach turns over for reasons that are only half about the earthquake.

They stare at each other’s eyes for a moment, moving closer to each other as the power flickers off and then on again. Zayn’s hazel eyes catch flecks of gold from the flickering light, and Liam swallows, because Zayn is _gorgeous_ , and he’s staring at Liam’s eyes like they’re last thing that he’s ever going to see. And Liam decides that if he has to be brave just once in his life, this is that time, because Liam’s fucked if he’s going to die in a falling building, his fingers clasped in Zayn’s and his body crushed beside him, and never have told him the things he’s had on his chest for a year.

“Zayn, I –”

“Whatever you’re thinking, just do it, Liam. Just go for it.”

Liam kisses Zayn so hard that he thinks his lips are going to bruise. And the most shocking thing about it isn’t how heat pulses all over his body as their lips touch for the first time, or that Zayn isn’t shoving him away and saying ‘What the fuck, Liam, what the fuck’. It’s that Zayn is kissing him back; that Zayn’s fingers are tight in his hair; that Zayn’s mouth was already hot and open for him when Liam kissed him.

One of Zayn’s hands comes down to his chest, finding the exposed muscles that are still a bit damp from his shower. He kneads the skin there, tilting his head back as Liam wraps a hand around his throat. Their lips part for a moment, and Liam thinks _‘God, God’_ because he has to have gone too far, he has to. But Zayn’s eyelashes come down, dark and heavy as he closes his eyes, his head still tilted into Liam’s hand on his throat, and when he lifts them his eyes are so dark on Liam’s that Liam doesn’t need to ask.

Liam gets to feel what it’s like to have his tongue inside Zayn’s mouth, and Zayn’s hands stroking his face, and when Zayn grabs his hand and puts it on his thigh, Liam groans, because the thought of Zayn _wanting_ him turns him on like nothing that he’s ever felt before. He wraps his arms around Zayn’s torso as the earthquake throws their bodies around, making their arms shake on each other’s skin. The tremors knock them into each other and the desk, and Liam knows he’s going to have bruises, but he doesn’t care, because Zayn’s chest is crushed against his and that’s all he’s wanted at night in his bed for months.

When the earthquake stops, they pause, inhale deeply and then, slowly, lean forward. They kiss slower now, and Liam shudders, because now the immediate danger is over it’s like the adrenaline hits him for the first time, shivering through his body. Zayn is shivering a little as well, shyer now, opening his mouth for Liam and tracing patterns on the back of his neck. Liam puts his fingers on Zayn’s jaw, holding him still with the tips of his fingers and softly sucking on his lower lip as he thinks a dazed combination of ‘ _What the fuck do you think you’re doing still snogging him Payno_ ’ and ‘ _Fuck me he feels good_ ’. When Paul bursts through the door, they move apart so fast they both smack their heads on opposite sides of the desk.

They’re rubbing their heads and wincing when Paul spots them.

“Well thank bloody fuck you two are alright!”

Liam rubs his head again and sheepishly edges out from under the desk, studiously avoiding eye contact with Zayn.

“You too Paul mate, you should’ve been staying put somewhere secure, not rushing about looking for us.”

Paul is on his phone, and Liam can hear Louis’s voice piping through the line.

“I should’ve known you’d rescue Zayn first, I’m fucking _wounded_ you would do a thing like that to me, Paul,” Louis is informing him, and Liam cracks a weak smile.

“You and Niall picked up your bloody phones, unlike these two idiots,” Paul replies, shooting Liam and Zayn a pointed look. He relents and gives them an affectionate smile two seconds later. Liam doesn’t know if it’s just because Paul’s relieved, or because he’s kneeling there with such a stricken look on his face that Paul thinks he’s in shock. Liam pulls himself onto his feet and looks around the room. There’s glass and clothes strewn around the floor, and as he clutches his towel tightly to his body he feels about as exposed as Zayn’s belongings. He can smell Zayn’s cologne on his chest, and all Liam is conscious of through his whole body is sweat and hormones and Zayn.

“...bottle of wine got knocked over,” Liam catches from Louis on the phone, “won’t be footing the bill for that.” Louis sounds pleased about something and Harry is making disgruntled noises in the background.

Liam flinches when Zayn puts a hand on his shoulder, but then he reaches up and holds onto his fingers over his chest.

“Thanks for looking after me, Liam,” Zayn says.

And Liam thinks his voice sounds a lot softer and more _still_ than he feels inside when he tells him, “You’re welcome.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Come say hello 
> 
> [Sugarhill Park @ Tumblr](https://sugarhillpark.tumblr.com/)


	8. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Look it's back. Sorry I've been away from this for so long. I'm absorbed in other projects a lot, but inch by inch, it's still going. It turns out it's actually pretty hard to pick up something you did over five years ago and make it work for your current headspace, who knew. Lots of love to anyone who was waiting. Melancholy and slutty bunk stuff ahoy.

When Louis announces that he’s back together with Eleanor, they’re all sitting around the kitchen bench eating toast and cereal. Niall manages not to look at Harry’s face, swerving his first-impulse glance away. He can feel the rapid rise of Harry’s chest as he inhales too fast at his side and the heavy pause before the rush of air as he exhales.

Niall wants to say “ _Really?_ ” and “For the love of God, Louis,” but he understands that giving Louis a reason to dig his heels in is going to help absolutely no one. He looks at Zayn and Liam instead, praying that someone breaks the awkward silence. Zayn looks distracted, and Liam is looking up from his bowl at Louis with tired eyes, swirling his spoon in aimless patterns through the milk. They’re sitting unusually far apart on their stools and Niall doesn’t really understand why, because Zayn’s wearing Liam’s shirt and Niall saw him drawing an arm that looked suspiciously like Liam’s on his sketchpad last night.

“That’s good news, man,” Liam tells Louis, but his smile looks a little forced. Liam seems to realise and tries again with more inflection. “It’ll be nice for Zayn, not being the only one with a missus. Right Zayn?” Liam nudges Zayn with his elbow and Zayn flushes for some reason.

“Yeah, lovely.”

“That’s-”, Niall starts in an attempt to stall the moment when Harry has to say something, but Harry’s already talking.

“That’s great, Lou. Eleanor’s lovely.”

Louis gives them all a perplexed look and then shakes his head and raises his eyebrows.

“Okay then, lads.”

“What?” Zayn asks, sounding like he’s still half paying attention as he rubs his neck, eyelashes batting down to Liam’s hands and away again. Louis lets out an annoyed little huff.

“I’m trying to have like, a normal conversation here and it’s like someone gave you all palm cards that just had ‘lovely’ on them.”

“I didn’t say ‘lovely’,” Niall says rather pointedly.

“What did you want to talk about, Lou?” Harry’s question takes Niall by surprise and he turns and looks at him. There’s a low flush on Harry’s face but his gaze is steady on Louis’s as he waits for an answer. They stare at each other for a moment and Niall releases a breath he hadn’t realised he was holding as Louis looks away first.

“Never mind,” Louis says. He lands that resigned, unaffected sigh that Niall suspects he’s going for perfectly, but his shoulders are set pretty tight. “Can you pass us the Cheerios, Zayn?”

Zayn absent-mindedly reaches for the box without watching what he’s doing. His arm rubs against Liam’s and both of them jump out of their skin for some reason. Zayn’s elbow clocks Liam’s bowl, splashing half of the milk inside onto Liam’s chest. Zayn starts mumbling flustered apologies and pressing tissues into the wet patch on Liam’s singlet and the tiny rivers of milk on his skin above it. Liam’s flushed and repeating “It’s fine, Zayn” and “It’s all good, please don’t worry about it” as he stares straight ahead. Niall stares at them and wants to lay his head in his hands.

“You had one job,” Louis says in exasperation as he leans over to reach past them for the box of Cheerios. His arm isn’t long enough and Niall sees his stool start to tip too far forward, but Harry’s faster, reaching a long arm past Louis and handing him the box.

“I had it,” Louis says.

“You were going to fall,” Harry says dully, that flush crawling up his neck again. Niall grabs Harry’s hand under the bench and gives it what he hopes is a heartening squeeze. Harry gives him a laudable attempt at a smile that gives Niall chest pains.

Louis’s blue eyes flicker between the two of them and he bites at the corner of his lip.

“Was I, though?”

Harry’s butter knife hits his plate with a clang as he stands and pushes his toast away.

“You know what, I think I’m actually full.”

Louis shrugs as Harry walks away and reaches for his abandoned toast. Zayn and Liam look up and stare in astonishment as Harry slams the door to the bunks, Liam’s hands paused mid-moment around Zayn’s arm where he was trying to gently tug it away. In all their years of hormones and packed-in spaces, Niall hasn’t once heard Harry _slam_ a door. He rubs his forehead and mutters “Good job, Louis”, but when Louis doesn’t come back with a snippy comment Niall looks up at him.

Louis is curled inwards, looking small inside his oversized hoodie. Niall watches him push Harry’s toast around the plate without eating anything and sighs.

“Do you want me to make you some toast that’s actually warm?”

Louis shakes his head and lifts the toast to his lips, taking a half-hearted nibble near the imprint of Harry’s teeth. His blue eyes glitter as he swallows and looks at Niall with a smile that’s as charming and as forced as Harry’s was and mumbles, “Lovely.”

*

Louis perches on top of the toilet lid, eyes looking listlessly into thin air under the blue light. He thinks it must be about 1 a.m. as he wraps his arm around his knees and shivers, because he got out of his bunk at around quarter to and the cold from wandering around without a top on is only now creeping under his skin. Louis wonders if Harry and Zayn are finished yet, closing his eyes for a moment on the lingering image of the golden skin of Zayn’s back gliding over Harry’s tattooed arms through the curtain they hadn’t pulled all the way closed, Harry gasping “Harder, _harder_ ” on his stomach. He wonders if Liam’s finished with alternating between tossing and turning as if he’s adrift at fucking sea and not on a stationary bus and doing a ludicrously poor job of pretending to be asleep.

Louis has no idea what’s wrong with Liam, with the loud, too-perfect pattern of his breath, wonders why he doesn’t climb into Zayn’s bunk on top of them if he’s that flustered by the damn noise. When Zayn and Harry would so obviously love that. Louis pictures their three skin tones, flush together, Harry caught in the middle, lips parted and wet, and then winces at an unexpected pain in the palm of his hand. He looks down and realises he was digging his nails into the skin there, leaving dark pink little marks.

Louis waves his hand at himself in the mirror above the sink and wonders, more than anything, why he feels so lonely. He’s a shout away from four lads at any time, thousands of screaming fans turn their bright eyes up to him on any given week, and the genuine sweetness of seeing Eleanor again, of her feathery touch on his face and her understanding eyes, is still present in his head from last week, like sugar around the lip of a glass. There’s an abundance of sweetness and human connection in his life, really, Louis thinks. He doesn’t understand why what he sees in the mirror is a sad lad, eyes glazing over at memories of an anchor-tattooed wrist rubbing shyly back and forth along his hip as he lay on top of Harry for a deep breath after that first time.

“This is the best thing,” Louis murmurs at his reflection. “For all parties.”

His reflection licks its dry lips and gazes back at him and then there’s a hesitant tap on the door. 

“Lou?”

Harry’s voice makes Louis want to fade into the porcelain and vanish but he says, “Yeah, come in, I was just-” He loses what he was going to say as Harry pushes the door open and stands naked and gleaming and still hesitant in the frame. “Talking to myself,” Louis finishes with a lame smile.

Harry looks at him slowly, his lashes damp. The rise and fall of his chest is fast and his cock is still a little thick against his thigh. Louis guesses that he and Zayn must have finished only a minute ago. He looks at the ceiling to hide his flush as he waits for Harry to do whatever he needs to do, and then almost falls over in his hurry to stand up as Harry clears his throat and Louis realises that he’s sitting on top of the facility that Harry probably wants to use.

 _Idiot_ , Louis thinks at himself as he cringes at the pain in his ankle where he’s banged it on the base of the toilet. He and Harry do an awkward shuffle to get past each other without making physical contact in the doorway, and Louis _hates_ this. He bites his lip and turns back at the last second, hovering in the frame.

“Harry…” he starts, and Harry looks up at him from where he’s reaching for the roll of loo paper. “I’m sorry I was like…possibly in a _tad_ of a mood this morning. I didn’t mean to put you out or anything.” Harry stares at him with his face turning pink.

“Lou-”

“And I’m sorry about your toast.”

“Lou-” Harry says a bit louder, but Louis isn’t certain he’s ready for anything Harry has to say and his mouth soldiers on while Louis just listens to his own awkward prattling in a state of utter incredulity at himself.

“I mean strawberry is the least inspired choice of all the jams, but I probably should’ve brought you that and not eaten it.”

“ _Louis.”_

There’s something embarrassed in the urgent snap of Harry’s tone, and Harry tries to cover his thigh with his hand before it happens, but Louis sees it anyway: a thick wet trail of cum leaking across the muscle of Harry’s right thigh. Harry’s face has gone a darker shade of pink as he looks at Louis’s wide eyes, and his fingers fan out uselessly over the pearly mess as it trails lower on his thigh. Louis’s tongue feels like a ball of pink cotton inside his mouth as he tries to look away from _Zayn_ still leaking into the tiny gap between the top of Harry’s thighs.

“I just wanted loo paper,” Harry says, rubbing his arm across his eyes. They’re watering, and Harry looks tired and ashamed. Louis hates how pretty he is like that, green eyes striking against the pink of his face, the tiny curls along his hairline wet with sweat and sticking in tight little spirals to the skin, downcast lashes only drawing the eye to pink lips thickened from the suction of Zayn’s mouth.

“Using protection with all the lads, hey,” Louis says flatly, looking down at Harry’s hand, now pressing against his thigh with a smear of cum above it and a little more pooling against his wrist. “More the fool me.” Louis meant it as a bad joke, a throwaway line to cut through the suffocating atmosphere between them. He’s taken aback for a moment by how low he sounds, by the tiny crack in his own voice.

Harry’s voice comes out hoarse.

“I forgot about it one time.”

Louis understands that he should leave it, but it’s like the words pour out without his permission.

“You never forgot about it with me.”

Harry looks as absolutely wretched as Louis feels. There’s a long pause and Harry turns his eyes up to the corner of the ceiling, blinking a couple of times and screwing his eyelids shut for a second. Something unfurls in Louis’s chest as he watches Harry hold back the tears shining at the corners of those bright eyes, soft and sad and warm inside his ribcage. He walks over to Harry, taking feather-light, slow steps until he’s in front of him. Louis’s afraid to speak and he’s afraid to touch, so he just looks up at Harry, tilting his head back so that the salty water in his own eyes probably shines for a moment too.

At last, Harry looks down at him.

“Would that have made you happy?”

Louis’s cold arms ache as Harry looks into his eyes. He has no idea what in the universe to say that won’t make anything worse, so all he manages is a tiny shrug. Harry nods and looks away.

“That’s what I thought.”

Harry’s put his hands at his sides now, like he’s given up on the cum starting to dry in a smear still faintly shimmering on his thigh, and as he watches a tear finally trail down Harry’s face, Louis is tired of just standing there, not taking care of him. He goes to the sink to get a flannel from the cupboard underneath and runs cold water over it, and then he takes the damp flannel back to Harry.

“Here,” Louis whispers, falling softly to his knees in front of Harry. “I’ll look after that.” Harry startles slightly at first but he lets Louis press the damp fabric into his skin and wipe away the mess. Louis’s careful to only look at what he needs to look at as he trails a fine layer of soap over Harry’s skin and washes it away again, to only make the pass of the flannel over Harry’s arse as practical and innocent as possible. He understands that’s not a place where he can put his hands anymore, that his circumstances, Eleanor’s pretty face, have changed Harry’s perfect frame into a place with areas partitioned away from Louis, a place that’s just memories of pleasure he should already be crossing out in his brain. _Last time_ , Louis tells himself. _Last time._

Louis’s thumb runs along Harry’s skin one more time as he dries the water away with a towel and then he mumbles, “It’s fine now. You’re all fine.”

Harry’s shuddery laugh takes Louis by surprise.

“Am I?”

Louis’s knee cramps as he tries to stand and Harry steadies him and then sighs and leans his forehead on Louis’s. Louis leans up in spite of himself, eyes falling closed so that he can feel Harry’s eyelashes on his as he listens to him breathe.  
  
“I’m sorry I slammed the door,” Harry mumbles, and Louis manages a fragile laugh.

“It’s alright, Liam’s had a monopoly on dramatically-timed door slamming for far too long. I wondering when someone was gonna have the balls to step up to the plate and challenge him.”

Harry laughs and leans into the soft pressure of Louis’s forehead against his. The air between their lips tastes sweet and Louis leans forward, not touching Harry’s lips, just wanting to taste it. Harry’s head tilts forward as if automatically and his bottom lip bumps against Louis’s top one for a clumsy moment. Harry pulls away with a quiet, awkward laugh and Louis looks up at him.

“I forgot about a lot of things with you,” Harry says softly, and Louis’s brain rushes back to lying underneath Harry at the top of that little hill, Harry smiling down at him as he pulled his top over his head under the stars, Harry watching him with his hand pressed up under his shirt, Harry not wanting to leave. Louis isn’t sure why that’s where his head goes, but he’s too busy thinking about it to curb his impulse to wrap his fingers around Harry’s upper arms. His fingers press into the muscles as he pulls himself up on his tiptoes to kiss Harry’s forehead, lips lingering for a second, like the starlight had seemed to in Harry’s hair. Harry’s eyes are closed as Louis slowly lowers onto the balls of his feet, and Harry sighs.

“I have to get some rest.”

Louis follows Harry back to the bunks, because it would’ve been more awkward not to, watching the naked curve of his spine and his arse in a tired trance. Harry pauses for a moment, and then he climbs back into Zayn’s bottom bunk instead of his top one across from Louis’s, nudging his way up under Zayn’s arm. Zayn stirs and turns into Harry a little, mouthing at his neck without opening his eyes. Zayn murmurs and tugs softly at Harry’s hair as he adjusts his position around him, and Harry lays his head against Zayn’s chest.

Harry looks up at Louis like that, face unreadable, and Louis forces his own features into something he hopes lands in the ballpark of the shy, sweet light that Harry used to look at him with in their X Factor days. Louis climbs into his bunk and thinks that if he can just capture that again, capture it and patch over this stupid, gut-punch infatuation in-between, it’ll be alright. Niall’s moved on from 80’s to 90’s teen movies now, and _She’s All That_ is still playing over his soft snoring. Louis lies on his back and listens to a quarter of the film before he realises he’s crying.

*

“Should you be dealing with it like this?” Liam asks. He’s trying hard to focus on having a serious look on his face, and not on the press of Harry’s arse against his growing erection.

“Am I dealing with it like this?” Harry tosses his hair out of his face, rubbing the tempting-looking bulge in his jeans into Liam’s cock. Liam struggles to think of what his concerns are as Harry rocks against his lap and his arse presses back against Liam’s balls. Harry takes Liam’s hands in his and presses them against his bare chest, his thumb rubbing Liam’s wrist encouragingly as Liam’s fingers instinctively go to play with his nipples. Liam understands that all kinds of things are up with Harry, but the way that Harry’s sighing in his lap as he pops the top button on his jeans to ease the pressure on his very hard, very pretty cock is really testing Liam’s ability to be an attentive, responsible friend. Liam steals a guilty look at the pink head of Harry’s cock as it pokes out from the top of the jeans he’s not wearing anything underneath, and then tries another attempt.

“I’m a pretty decent listener, if you’ve got like…stuff you wanna get off your chest.”

Harry huffs and leans forward, swiping his thumbs over Liam’s nipples.

“If you’re such an amazing listener, how come I’m half-naked in your lap, asking you to fuck me, and you’re not listening?”

“I’m just saying-” Liam forgets what he was just saying as Harry pushes his weight off his hands on Liam’s chest and back onto his arse in Liam’s lap again, pulling his zipper all the way down and rubbing the seat of his pants in persistent little circles on Liam’s cock. Liam’s thickened pretty much all the way up now, though he’d been asleep a couple of minutes ago. He’d been napping in just his briefs, taking advantage of an odd moment off in the afternoon to catch up on a bit of rest, only to wake up with lapful of flushed, restless Harry. It’s not like Harry to wake someone up for sex in the afternoon, when they’re all pretty exhausted from touring and recording at once at the minute, partially as it’s usually Harry who’s napping in odd places in the afternoon.

It’s not like Harry to wake anyone up for it late at night either, Liam thinks as he watches the open black jeans start to peel away from Harry’s hips. Except for Louis. Liam used to wake up at a noise in the bunks at night and pause for a moment to make sure it was just Louis and Harry, embarrassed murmurs and sweet little gushes of laughter and the gentle push of skin on skin soothing him back to sleep along with Zayn and Niall’s soft steady breath. Louis’s passed out too early these past weeks, up by five to sneak out for cigarettes in the cold, and Harry’s up too late, sneaking out to go to parties whenever they’re in a city and coming back smelling like pussy and floral perfume. If they’re in a place where Harry doesn’t know anyone, or he’s too laid-out from a show, Liam sometimes finds him sitting alone in the kitchen late at night, wearing a faded t-shirt that’s slightly too small for him and playing with his hands. Liam doesn’t really understand, but he walks up to him and plays with his hands for him until Harry sighs into it and climbs into his lap.

Liam thinks about it now: Harry wrapping his arms tightly around his shoulders as Liam pushes up inside him, the stool wobbling precariously under them because Harry’s toes can only just touch the floor like that; Harry pulling him down into him on the cold floor and pushing his damp face into his neck while Liam gasps and pushes his thigh back. Liam loves losing himself in that, the way that the memories of Zayn’s eyelashes and lips under his blur at the edges when someone so pretty is pushing up underneath him. Liam swallows now and rubs his thumb along Harry’s belly. He wants to tell Harry that he understands _a bit_ , but the last thing that Harry needs to hear about is Liam’s problems.

“That’d feel nicer if you were in me,” Harry huffs, watching the thumb on his abs as he stills in Liam’s lap.

“You’re so pretty lately,” Liam murmurs, trailing all of his fingers down Harry’s pelvic muscle. And it’s true; there’s something so amazing in the restless way that Harry watches Louis lately, feverish energy blooming all over him so that he’s all shifting parts and shades of pink washing over his face around the sea green eyes like a stop motion flower. Liam wonders if Louis doesn’t notice or if he’s just looking away because of Eleanor. Liam leans forwards and nuzzles into that muscle until he finds a pulse point and sucks on it gently. “It’s his loss.”

“ _Liam_ ,” Harry flushes.

“What?”

“Pretty sure it’s not,” Harry mumbles, and Liam frowns.

“Not to brag or anything, but I’ve got a hard-on that could probably bridge the English Channel because of how pretty you are. Luckiest man in the bunks right here.”

Harry laughs softly and palms at the thick line of Liam’s cock pushing up in his briefs with a coy smile.

“Think you could just bridge the gap between my legs?” Harry wiggles his hips, making his cock jiggle and Liam chuckles and sits up to kiss him.

“You’re so locked-up,” he murmurs into Harry’s lips as he rubs his fingers into the tense muscles at the base of his spine.

“So tight,” Harry murmurs back, and he’s trying to make it sexy but Liam hears the strain underneath.

“I’ll put it on you anytime you like,” he says, licking a path up Harry’s throat and playing with his hair. “I just wish you’d tell me what’s up sometimes.” Liam settles on his back again and puts his thumbs under his briefs, dragging them down so that Harry can see his cock slap against his stomach. “Aside from like, this massive erection you’ve given me.”

Harry snorts a little and then sighs.

“Eleanor’s here tomorrow.”

Liam’s been so preoccupied what with thinking about that night at the hotel with Zayn every 1.5 minutes and trying to act perfectly normal at the same time that he’d almost forgotten about Louis’s casual announcement last week that his girlfriend was going to tag along for a couple of days. Harry had said “Great!” way too fast and Niall had made an exasperated sound and muttered “Sure, perfect” into his Nutella toast. Liam had just nodded, thinking about Perrie and Zayn and looking at Zayn’s face, flushed from the morning cold. Harry has a deep flush on his face now, and Liam nods up at him and then turns his face into the inside of his thigh, placing butterfly kisses there because he knows Harry likes that. Harry’s eyelashes flutter and he sighs.

“When she comes I don’t want to be all uptight like this, I wanna be like…” Harry trails off into a vague hand gesture and then rearranges his features into a one of the loveliest, most disarming smiles that Liam has seen in his life. It’s put-on but still absolutely dazzling. Harry doesn’t seem to think so because after a moment he huffs and slumps in Liam’s lap with a defeated look on his face. Liam wants to bundle him up in his arms but he reaches out and tugs at Harry’s flagging cock, understanding what he wants now.

“I think can help you relax, angel face.”

“Yeah?” Harry breathes, and Liam pulls him down, licking inside his mouth and stroking his cock until Harry’s rutting into his lap again. “Want that inside me,” Harry murmurs, reaching back underneath him to squeeze Liam’s cock.

“Now?” Liam teases, gripping Harry’s arse hard and pulling him forward so that Harry moans.

“Like ten minutes ago,” Harry says, and Liam laughs and gives his arse a playful smack before he rubs his fingers in circles and spreads the cheeks apart.

“Say please.”

“Please shove your cock up inside me, please.” Harry’s rubbing his lips and his cock and his belly against any part of Liam that he can reach and Liam’s cock jumps at the pleas. He uses his weight to flip their positions and then pulls hard on Harry’s arm so that he turns over. Harry arches his back as Liam pulls his tight jeans down to the base of his thighs.

“Gonna leave these like that,” Liam tells him, pushing his thumb under the edge of the jeans where it’s pressing hard into Harry’s skin. “Make sure you can’t spread those pretty legs too far so you stay all perfect and tight for me.” Harry groans and arches back harder, so Liam carries on. “You look so fucking pretty like that,” Liam pulls at Harry’s hair, admiring the way the long curls trail down his back. Harry wriggles and whines and Liam pushes his palm down on the small of his back, loving the way that Harry still pushes up against the pressure, his arse pressing against Liam’s balls. “Gonna feel so good pulling your hair while I’m in that tight pretty arse.”

“Liam, _please_ ,” Harry pants, and Liam relents and swipes his thumb down the cleft of Harry’s arse. His eyebrows shoot up when he finds his skin already sticky with lube.

“Fuck me,” Liam murmurs, pushing two fingers softly into the slick skin of Harry’s perineum so that Harry moans. “You’re so wet, you’re like a girl.” Harry gasps and bucks up into his fingers and Liam makes a mental note of that, gasping himself as he plays with Harry’s wet pink hole and his cock drips onto Harry’s thigh. “So pretty and wet for me, Harry.”

“Torturer,” Harry gasps, and Liam grins and leans over him, licking his spine at the base of his neck.

“You love it.” Liam pushes his thumb just inside Harry’s rim, pushing down softly until Harry makes a mewling sound that makes Liam pant and close his eyes.

“I think I’m gonna pass out if you don’t put your cock in me in the next ten seconds,” Harry mumbles into the pillow, turning his head to the side so that Liam can see the lovely pink on his face and the way his lip’s all swollen from chewing on it. Liam lays more of his weight on Harry, so that he’s almost laid out on top of him, his cock heavy against Harry’s thighs.

“Look how hard I am, you’re a menace.” Liam runs his hand through Harry’s hair and gets a fistful of it. “Arch that back again for me,” he murmurs, and then groans when Harry rushes to comply, at the pretty curve of Harry’s frame, at the sticky rub of the head of his cock against Harry’s perineum, at the easy, sweet release he’s about to get inside that flushed, thrumming body. “It’s not fair that you’ve got to sing and record and stuff so I can’t keep you in my bunk like this. Just come in anytime I like and plug you up with my fingers and my tongue and my-”  
  
“Liam, _God_ ,” Harry’s voice is low and frantic and his thighs twitch as Liam rubs his cock into them, “ _please,_ _plug me_.”

Liam’s pulse is racing as he shuffles back and pulls Harry’s hips up so that he’s arse-up face-down in front of him, blindly fumbling for the lube in his bunk as his cock leaks at Harry’s mantra of ‘Please, please, please.’

“No, your cock, now,” Harry whines when Liam tries to push a slicked finger inside him. “I’m ready, I promise.” Liam feels like he’s about to black out from the tightness in his balls but a part of him in his chest feels a little protective when he thinks about how impossibly pink and tender Harry always looks when Liam pulls out.

“Angel face, I-” Liam stammers, looking for a sexy way to say that he’s afraid of causing Harry any pain and failing, blushing and giving up as he realises he sounds like an anxious dad. Liam sighs and a lock of hair falls over his eye.

Harry turns over underneath him and looks at Liam’s face. His gaze goes soft and he reaches up and brushes the lock of hair away.

“What if it’s face-to-face? So you can look at my face.” Harry’s pink tongue swipes over his bottom lip and he looks at Liam all flushed and hot and almost shy. “See how much I like it.”

Liam can feel his eyes crinkling up with affection as he rubs a condom and his lubed-up fist up and down his cock. He presses his lips into Harry’s calf muscle as Harry helps him push one of his long legs back. Harry adjusts a little as Liam gets his leg over his shoulder, lips parting at the sensation as Liam aligns and nudges him with the tip of his cock.

“One more time,” Liam murmurs and Harry understands because he nods.

“Mess me up, please.”

Liam pushes inside all at once and Harry’s body pulses like heartbeat. Harry only makes a little _‘Uh’_ sound and digs his heel into Liam’s back to push him closer. Liam finds a quick rhythm with his hips, pulling those ‘ _Uh, uh, uh’_ noises out of Harry and loving the almost impossible tightness, the incredible friction that somehow still lets him push in and out of that lean pretty frame. Harry’s lashes flutter as he looks up at Liam, pupils blown and spit starting to shine on his lips, gaze all glazing and awed, and Liam thinks _‘Woah.’_

“You actually like it like this,” he murmurs.  
  
“P-please,” Harry actually stutters, and Liam moans.  
  
“You’re so perfect, made for this Harry, nobody’s this tight and pretty and fucking perfect stretched around my cock.”

There’s a strange noise from the doorway, and Liam’s about to gasp out “Not my fault Niall, I was just napping”, but Harry looks past him and his lips fall apart a little wider.

“Zayn.”

Liam freezes.

“My bad, I was just-” Zayn starts and pauses, still sounding strangely like he’s got something stuck in his throat, “looking for Liam.”

Harry’s breath tickles Liam’s throat as his words come out.

“Look, you found him.”

Liam can feel the tips of his ears going pink and wonders if it’s possible to die of awkwardness as he thinks about the view Zayn must have of his bare arse pressing into Harry’s body.

“So I did, yeah,” Zayn laughs and then swallows. “I’ll uh, I’ll come back later.”

“I want you too.” Harry speaks softly, looking past him at Zayn, and then he’s looking up at Liam, pretty eyes all damp with lust and teeth dragging along his bottom lip and hips tilting up on Liam’s cock. “If Liam’s alright with it.”

Liam thinks he can actually _hear_ his pulse in the room, feeling it pressing up on the inside of his neck and inside of Harry where he’s still pushed in deep. He feels like he’s moving through water as he rests his weight on Harry’s hips and turns his head over his shoulder slightly, trying to make his tongue and his lips form words.

“Liam’s alright with it! Join the party!” Liam feels the unflattering shade of pink on his ears spread over his entire face and he’d put his face in his hands if he wasn’t braced on top of Harry’s pliant body. Liam isn’t sure what’s more mortifying, the fact that he just referred to himself in the third person for absolutely no reason, or the fact that what his brain came up with was ‘Join the party’, like he’s in here playing fucking beer pong instead of having his cock shoved flush up under Harry’s solar plexus.

Liam expects Zayn to laugh and walk out, and fair enough, Liam thinks dejectedly. He’s amazed when Zayn tentatively approaches them, tugging reflexively at his white t-shirt so that his throat is exposed as he stands at the side of the bunk and gazes at their conjoined bodies. Liam’s pulse flutters as Zayn’s eyes skate over his back, and he adjusts his position and thrusts up into Harry’s body, fisting Harry’s hair tightly in his hand on the pillow so that Harry gasps and tries to press himself down on his cock. 

“Look how pretty he is,” Liam tells Zayn, trying to make his awed whisper one-hundred percent about Harry and not about Zayn’s gold skin and hazel eyes practically glowing against the white tee when he looks at Liam’s eyes for a second, his lips so pink against the frame of black hair as he licks them and looks away.

“So pretty,” Zayn says. He lowers himself to his knees so that his face is near Harry’s and Harry makes a little protesting sound.

“Put it in my mouth,” Harry says, tapping two fingers against his puffy lips, and Liam groans and rocks into him, making Harry’s eyes roll a little and his fingers push up messily into the inside of his mouth. Zayn reaches out and rubs Harry’s nipple between his thumb and forefinger.

“I think you should make sure Liam has a nice time first, ay,” Zayn says, his fingers trailing down to Harry’s stomach and pressing, almost as if he’s looking for Liam inside him. “Wanna watch you make him come with that tight pretty body.” Harry’s nodding rapidly, arching as Zayn’s fingers tease at the head of his flushed cock. Liam’s heart pounds.

“Li-am,” Harry stutters out, looking up from Zayn’s fingers on his cock and into Liam’s eyes. Liam focuses on pushing into Harry’s prostrate, making him stutter like that, trying not to look at the way Zayn’s laid the side of his face on the pillow near Harry’s, looking up at him for a moment from under dark heavy lashes. “P-please use me to come. Come in me. Want you to like it in- inside me.” Zayn’s eyelashes fan out as his eyes fall closed and Liam can hear Zayn’s breath accelerating.

“You want to be so good for him,” Zayn murmurs, his accent getting stronger like it does when he’s really immersed in anything, watching Liam through hooded eyes. “Take it all, make it feel so right when he’s inside of you like that…”

“ _Uhh_ ,” Harry whines, nodding and then struggling as Zayn tweaks his nipples. The twisting of Harry’s body makes him corkscrew on Liam and Liam moans as Harry’s muscles squeeze his sensitive cock.

“Look, he likes that,” Zayn whispers to Harry. His lips look wet and Liam pushes up deeper inside Harry, dizzy and dripping inside the condom from listening to Zayn’s voice and looking at Zayn’s face while Harry’s insides grip his cock. “Likes when you struggle a bit but still like it…” Liam almost chokes on his own saliva at the look Zayn flashes him, heavy and loaded with his eyelashes low.

“I want you under him,” Liam blurts out, and Harry and Zayn both freeze, Zayn’s fingers flattening on Harry’s belly and Harry stilling and settling on Liam’s cock and looking up at him through sticky lashes.

“What?” Harry asks softly, and Zayn’s hand twitches, smears the sweat on Harry’s abdomen as his eyes fly up to Liam’s.

“I want you under us, like,” Liam has the vague sensation of listening to someone else talk in a dream as he pulls his cock out of Harry and flips him onto his stomach, Harry gasping as Liam pulls him up and back onto his knees. Liam flicks his fingers at the bed under Harry’s frame and then sucks on them and wraps them around himself, guiding his cock so that it rubs on Harry’s pink hole again. “Want you on the bed, Zayn.”

Liam has a second to think about the fact that he’s probably just dug a fantastically awkward hole that he’s not going to be able to excavate himself from, and then Zayn is scrambling up, tearing his clothes off so fast it almost gives Liam whiplash, trying to watch all that perfect skin appearing. Zayn and Harry tug softly at one another as they work around each other’s limbs so that Zayn can get under Harry’s trembling arms. Harry almost falls on his face and Liam has to pull him up harder with his arm around his waist, and then Zayn is there, underneath them, facing up and curling his fingers tentatively around Harry’s shoulder, close to Liam’s mouth. Liam can see how hard they’re clenched and the deep blush on Zayn’s face as Liam lowers more of his weight onto Harry, pushing him down into Zayn’s naked frame. Liam’s cock leaks at the way they both gasp as it makes their cocks rub together, the way that Zayn’s eyes fly down to his crotch for a moment and then his fingers tighten more around Harry’s shoulder, making the skin go pink as he looks up at Liam.

“Don’t you want to kiss him?” Liam whispers into Harry’s damp forehead, letting his lower lip drag along the skin, amazed as Zayn’s pulse twitches in his throat and his lips part as if it’s automatic. Harry nods rapidly and leans down as Zayn tilts his head up for him. Liam watches, rubbing the head of his cock into Harry and struggling to breathe in anything resembling a normal pattern as they start to moan into one another’s mouths. He rocks forward with Harry’s body, and for a moment his lips bump awkwardly into Zayn’s little finger where he’s still gripping Harry’s shoulder. Zayn’s eyes flutter closed for a moment.

“Fuck him, please,” Zayn murmurs, eyelids damp and shining, and then his eyes open wide and he looks straight at Liam. Liam’s wants to die as his face goes what he’s guessing is a shocking pink, breath stuttering out as Zayn spreads his legs wider around Harry’s frame, one ankle rubbing slowly at Liam’s thigh.

Harry pushes his hips back against Liam’s cock and wriggles, the wet skin in the crease of his arse glistening a little in the low light.

“Come on, you left me so wet and open. Please come back.”

Zayn’s sucking his lower lip and closing his eyes again, tiny creases appearing in the skin at the corner from how tight he’s screwed them shut. His shoulders move in a tiny spasm underneath them, as if he’s the one about to be filled up and stretched, and then he rubs his thumb along Liam’s wet open mouth.

_“Liam.”_

Liam closes his eyes, makes a silent prayer to _someone_ that he won’t come the instant that he pushes inside just from hearing Zayn breathe, sighs, and slides his cock all the way into Harry’s body. He shivers as Harry curses and Zayn curses a fraction of a section later, hopes that Harry’s leaking onto Zayn’s lap, hopes Zayn is thinking for a moment about how it’s Liam that’s making his body leak pleasure like that.

“God, how do you take it like that when you’re still fucking _wringing_ my cock?” Liam asks, holding Harry up by his hips as his thrusts make Harry collapse onto his elbows so his chest is almost flattened against Zayn’s, oversensitised and making muffled moaning sounds into Zayn’s shoulder. Zayn seems almost unaware of Harry’s damp chest rubbing against his each time that Liam bottoms out, looking up at Liam over his shoulder with his mouth open and an oddly flustered look on his face.

“What’s it like?” Zayn murmurs, and Liam bites his lip.

“So good. He’s so sensitive and he’s still squeezing for me.” Liam pinches Harry’s hip and Harry gasps and squeezes impossibly tight around him.

“Yeah?” Zayn breathes, and Liam hurts his neck he nods that quickly, re-angling his hips until he’s sure he’s pressing into Harry’s prostate dead-on from the way he yelps and tumbles forward, breathing loud as he pushes his head into Zayn’s shoulder.

“Uh-huh,” Liam sucks on his gums and focuses on the rhythm of his thrusts, watching Harry’s brown curls fall all over Zayn’s chest, Zayn’s fingers coming up almost absently to curl in the tangled hair. “He wants me to come inside. Make him all full until all he can do is look at me with those pretty eyes and stutter while I fuck my last load deeper into him.”

Zayn’s hazel eyes are warm under his long lashes and he has a strange flush on his chest and his face, looking at Liam sideways and he turns his head just enough to drag his lips along the shell of Harry’s ear.

“Tell me what he feels like inside you,” Zayn whispers, loud enough for Liam to hear, eyes still watching Liam as the streaks of pink on his chest and his cheek turn a deeper shade under the gold skin.

“So big,” Harry’s voice is throaty and wet, “so thick and perfect. Love the way he tosses me around like it’s nothing and then puts it in and m-makes me come all over myself.” The muscle in Zayn’s arm is tensed up where his fingers are still wrapped in Harry’s hair and Liam reaches out without thinking, runs his fingers along his upper arm. Zayn twitches and arches like he’d forgotten his arm was attached to his body, and an answering shudder runs up Liam’s arm from his fingers. He wraps them around Zayn’s skinny bicep and Zayn lets him, his arm falling back to the bed and taking part of Liam’s weight as he looks up at him with wide eyes.

“You’re gonna come all over Zayn’s belly,” Liam whispers in Harry’s ear, and Zayn freezes, chest heaving under them. “You’re gonna make a mess.” 

“ _Please,_ ” Harry groans, and Liam runs his fingers soothingly along his ribs.

“Sssh, just take it, angel face, you’re gonna come soon.”

Harry keens and goes flushed and pliant as Liam thrusts in and out of him, the head of his cock rubbing and rubbing at the same sweet spot wrapped in Harry’s twitching muscles. Zayn is staring at Liam with dark eyes, black pupils like saucers and sweat glistening on his chest as his body’s pushed back into the mattress at each thrust.

“I’m gonna-” Harry moans, and Zayn arches up, looking Liam dead in the eye as Harry’s cum streaks his ribs and his flushed chest. Harry’s crying out as Liam pounds into him, a jumbled mess of curses and ‘Please’ and their names and what sounds like ‘Harder’, which Liam doesn’t understand until he realises how hard Zayn’s arm is trembling in his grip, that Zayn’s finally looking away even though his face is pink and sticky with sweat, and then he thinks _shit, please, fucking please_ , pushes Harry’s hips down into Zayn’s lap and thrusts into him like he’s trying to hit the inside of his ribcage.

“You want me to use you to get him off?” Liam gasps out. “Want me to fuck you hard until you cry because your pretty little body’s too used to come anymore?”  
  
Harry’s muscles are twitching uncontrollably, tiny twinges under the skin that Liam wants to play his fingers over and soothe, but he manages a choked up “Uh-huh” and Liam pushes into him so hard that the weight of their bodies forces the bunk into the wall. Harry’s elbows finally collapse from the pressure and there’s a wet sound as his skin crushes into Zayn’s and his frames slides slightly in his own cum, belly and cock dragging down over Zayn’s. Zayn twists and gasps under Harry, and Liam almost loses his grip on his arm, digging his fingers in with the last of his strength as Zayn’s neck arches back, lips parted and crying out as he comes, wrapping his calf around Liam’s thigh and digging his ankle in hard.

Liam’s orgasms paralyses the rest of his body, waves of pleasure tearing through him as he spills inside Harry’s softly spasming frame, his awareness of his own muscles and limbs fluttering helplessly from the pressure point of Zayn’s ankle on his inner thigh to Zayn’s upper arm, warm and wet with sweat under his fingers.

As the pulses fade, Liam lets himself slowly collapse against Harry’s back, mouths at the slightly tacky skin and lifts one hand to rub down the bumps of his spine. Harry sighs and his muscles flutter softly around Liam’s softening cock. He arches back a little for more of Liam’s fingers and Liam smiles and traces nonsense words on the skin, pulse jittering a little as he loosens his grip on Zayn’s arm. The memory that this was meant to be for Harry, something to make him feel more comfortable in his skin, rushes into his head and Liam wonders if Harry’s alright, kissing the nape of his neck as he pulls out. Harry doesn’t protest at the loss but he reaches an arm back and makes a lazy grabby hand gesture when Liam makes to shuffle back on the bed. Liam chuckles and tries to rearrange Harry where he’s draped himself all over Zayn’s body, damp eyelids closed and his face nuzzling into Zayn’s chest. Harry’s thigh is draped over Zayn’s lap and Liam pauses for a moment, unable to pretend not to stare at that gold skin on Zayn’s concave stomach, smeared with cum and rising and falling with his heavy breath.

“Let me lay you on your side,” Liam says to Harry, who’s making contented little sounds at Liam squeezing at his ribcage but seems unwilling to actually move. “You’re crushing Zayn.”

“Not possible,” Harry mumbles into Zayn’s collar bone, “’m paralysed.” He cracks an eye open and turns his head enough to look up at Liam. “My pretty little body’s too used.”

Liam cracks a smile at that and he watches Zayn’s soft laugh make Harry’s head bob up and down against his chest. Harry gives him a pretty grin and then sucks lightly at Zayn’s skin, eyes not breaking away from Liam’s. “It’s alright, Liam,” Harry tells him, letting his teeth drag on Zayn’s skin and looking at Liam with a sleepy smile. “It was good.”

Harry makes a reproachful ‘ooft’ sound as Liam manhandles him off Zayn and onto his side, but he wriggles back happily into Liam’s arms when Liam pushes his way between Harry’s back and the wall. Liam rests his fingers on Harry’s ribcage and listens to Zayn’s breathing, looking at the wall and promising himself not to look at Zayn’s eyes and say something stupid. He feels Zayn wrap one leg around Harry’s, his ankle rubbing into Liam’s calf, only gently now. Liam’s eyes water and he tries to look more intensely at the wall, like it’s fascinating.

“I’ll-” Zayn sighs, a strange restlessness in his voice as Liam feels his weight start to lift away from the bunk, and Harry grabs his hand.  
  
“No,” Harry says, not loudly but with an air of finality as he places Zayn’s hand on tops of Liam’s on his ribs.

Liam’s eyes fly up to Zayn’s and Zayn meets them, a shock of pink clinging to his face as he blinks at Liam with his damp lashes.

“I-” Liam stutters out, and then, “there’s- there’s plenty of time.” It’s not strictly true; they’ve got probably another hour to themselves to nap before Niall barges into the room with his fingers clamped over his eyes yelling at them to get dressed for whatever’s been shoved into their packed itinerary tonight. And Liam wonders what exactly he’s trying to say, why his voice lilts up at end like it’s a question. Zayn looks back at him as he settles his fingers over Liam’s and leans into the warmth of Harry’s pretty, languorous frame.

“Oh,” Zayn murmurs, bites his wet lip through a tiny smile. “Yeah.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Sugarhill Park @ Tumblr](https://sugarhillpark.tumblr.com/)


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